


Their Eyes Were Watching God

by heyguysitsher, siege_ayy



Category: Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: 19th Century, Arguing, Banter, Begging, Blood, Blood As Lube, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blood Loss, Blood Sharing, Bonus Smut, Canon Compliant, Catholic Guilt, Collaboration, Dirty Talk, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Smut, Innuendo, Introspection, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Making Up, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Third Person Omniscient, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Religious Conflict, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism, Rue Royale, Teasing, Vampire Sex, Vampires, brat tamer!Louis, brat!Lestat, first two chapters rated M, french-speaking, lestat has no rights, long hair louis forever, louis is Built ;), me and my gf fell in love over this respect it, spoiler alert: claudia kinda gets lestat laid, thinly-veiled excuse to share headcanons, tired dads, top!Louis, wingman claudia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24430303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyguysitsher/pseuds/heyguysitsher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/siege_ayy/pseuds/siege_ayy
Summary: Louis has been completely ignoring Lestat for an entire week after a nasty fight. On this seventh day of being deprived of attention, Lestat gets desperate. Where is Claudia in all this, you ask? Let's just say she knows how to make an exit.Chapters 1-2 are rated M for language and sexual references, whereas Chapter 3 is a shameless sex scene that is very much rated E for E-rotic and E-xtremely Gratuitous in true Ricean fashion. Proceed with caution, or, alternately, enthusiasm.
Relationships: Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac
Comments: 19
Kudos: 140





	1. Exodus

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to our lovely fanfiction! Please curl up with a strong drink and enjoy the show. This fic is kind of mine and Liv's baby, originally written in rp format, with me writing for Louis and her writing for Lestat and Claudia, then merged manually together. It was over this fic that we fell in love, too. Please tell us how we did! (Politely, comments are moderated.)
> 
> A fair warning, there are a lot of French words and phrases sprinkled throughout the work. There will be a glossary at the end of every chapter, but feel free to keep a translator tab open.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a week-long dry spell, Lestat tries to seduce his way out of the trouble he's in with Louis. Louis, meanwhile, is Not Amused.

Blood is, of course, the primary way to increase a vampire's vitality. This is a concept universally known in fact and fiction. But though the crimson kiss is what supplies them _existence_ , it is truly the lesser prey, that which cannot be seen, that allows a vampire to truly _live_.

This preferred delicacy can vary from man to man. Some vampires feed on the misery of others. They skulk in crypts, to lick the fallen tears from the pavement as they trail behind the woeful widow. Many languish in a certain untapped sexual energy, luring their livestock with uttered sighs, salacious whispers, and a kiss about the neck before the fatal strike. Often, a vampire's taste in atmosphere can be a mixture of many things.

But rarely, in a life of seclusion and hiding from the mortal world, does a vampire crave so deeply for _attention_. The glow of mass approval, the rapture of adoration. To bask in the limelight like a lizard in the sun.

Lestat de Lioncourt was, and had always been, one such vampire. And he took his satisfaction from any and every possible domain. Feeding could look like anything from treading the boards of a stage, tasting the energy of the crowd, at the edge of their seats in rapt attention, to something as simple as a salacious glance or well placed compliment. Sources of attention were many, and lulls few. Being a handsome, wealthy, and scandalous socialite with unparalleled skill on the pianoforte did not often leave one remiss for succor.

But when he _was_ without. When the tide of parties, pampering and preening grew stagnant—

It was like any other kind of hunger.

Wait a few days or so, and you start to get a little cranky. A little wound up. A little strung out. A little feverish.

If only Louis hadn’t been so sensitive.

Louis could not deny how desirable he found Lestat. After a few years of living with him Louis found no more energy within him left to fight the awful truth. He loved Lestat, as he supposed many did. But what made his heart flutter with near-human emotion was the knowledge that Lestat did love him back. And in all his flamboyance, his annoyances, and tantrums, there was a man who desperately wanted love, no matter how he got it.

But his head plunged into turmoil every time Lestat made an advance, every time his hand brushed against his own, every kiss, every (rarely) sincere smile. Even after all but abandoning his Christianity, he felt a tug of shame at his throat to accompany the lust in his heart. But was it lust? Louis would think. He knew that the rules were different now that he was no longer human, but _how_ different? This he wished Lestat would elaborate on. He wished that for all his other qualities, understanding was one of them.

But Lestat’s idea of love was sex and unwelcome philanthropy.

That, and perhaps, harassment.

The way Lestat talked so casually and openly about their bedroom life knotted Louis’ stomach. The way Lestat tried to blend Louis’ conflicting feelings on their sin and his religion stoked rage indescribable.

It had all started over that stupid cross.

Lestat had only purchased the damn thing out of humor. A roughly hewn carved figure of the Christ, dangling limply from his post. He’d found it at a voudou market in the French quarter and brought it home to amuse his lover. 

Unfortunately, Louis had reached his limit. All his pent up frustration towards Lestat came thundering up in that very moment. Louis believed that Lestat fancied himself intellectually superior for having no god. They could not go one night without Lestat making some sarcastic remark towards him.

So, naturally, the gift was not received with the gratitude and reverence Lestat was convinced it richly deserved.

Perhaps it had something to do with Lestat jokingly suggesting it be hung over the bedpost so it could see when they fucked.

_Somehow_ that was offensive, Lestat truly couldn’t understand why, but it ended up devolving into an all-out screaming tantrum fight with Louis about the sanctity of the bible, in which he distinctly remembered calling the concept of God an ‘irrevocable farce’ and the pope a ‘bloated cock-obsessed little cunt’.

Louis backhanded Lestat’s every attempt to gain satisfaction through stoking the fire. He found it strangely cathartic to allow himself to scream, though he worried others outside might hear. He maintained this vicious defense for a long time, until he realized that all he had been doing was dignifying Lestat with his responses. He then abandoned the argument entirely.

All that mattered was, at the end of it all, Lestat had given no apology. Far from it, as a final insult, he had taken a hammer and a tack and nailed the damn crucifix on the headboard himself out of pure spite, proclaiming his intention to have Louis pushed to the sacrilege and desecration of being railed in front of it (or railing, respectively) if it was the last thing he did.

Only to have this plan immediately backfire when Louis completely stonewalled him and refused to go near the damned thing.

Louis had himself admitted long ago that he could never leave Lestat, so he did not. But for seven entire nights, he refused to give Lestat the attention he craved. It gave Louis an almost sick pleasure to do it. Seeing Lestat so starved and frustrated made him snicker in his coffin as he drifted off to sleep each day. In their life, especially in the bedroom, Lestat had always been in charge, a clever hunter, usually enticing his prey rather than giving chase; even when Louis thought he was punishing him, he was really just playing into his hand. And Louis would always fall for it, his only thoughts becoming, _Oh, you’ve made me angry. You'll be sorry now._ But Lestat was never sorry. This Louis had trouble remembering in the throes of passion.

But now he was giving Lestat true punishment. He was giving him _nothing_. Nothing left to do but beg for forgiveness. And he figured, if Lestat took down that unsightly crucifix, he would allow some depravity afterwards. Louis snickered again. Maybe he’d make him beg there, too.

And on this seventh day of the dead silence between them, you could cut the tension in the house with a knife. It was ever-present, like a pall. Lestat began to daydream and obsess about Louis’ exquisite body. The way his hair fell in his face. The scent of him, his ghostly pallor. Foreign dalliances did not satisfy him, nor did gentleman callers he brought home one or twice to try and inflame Louis’ passions through jealousy.

It became so distracting that even average things lost their luster and enjoyment. The brat prince spent the hours plunking discordant notes vindictively on the piano, trying to get a reaction from him.

That night, he was in the middle of playing the C, D, D-Flat, and B keys at once over and over, in an obnoxious monotonous rhythm, to make a noise reminiscent of a cat yowling.

In the parlor, Louis sat reading a newspaper, teeth clenched.

_Plink. Plunk. Plink. Plunk. Plink._

After a moment more of this, Lestat spasmed in self disgust and smacked the keys randomly in a childish manner, creating a loud, insane mishmash of noise. With a slam, he shut the piano and braced his palms against it.

“Louis! I can stand this absurdity no longer. I DEMAND you cease this fruitless pursuit of my unhappiness this INSTANT, or I will—I will—” he huffed, “I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

This outburst didn’t startle Louis, in fact it made him laugh a little. “Ah, yes, fruitless,” he said, mostly to himself. “Fruitless indeed.”

If Lestat’s ghastly pallor allowed, he would have flushed scarlet. The reaction garnered was just as revealing, the way he balked and huffed and blinked furiously as though someone had sprayed him in the face with perfume.

“Wha—You think this is funny, do you? Torturing me so? When I give you _everything_ , your very _life_ , a house of beautiful things. and my unending devotion to your whim and pleasure!” Of the vast compendium of rhetoric Lestat had compiled over the centuries, the ‘after all I’ve done for you (insert ungrateful fledgling name here)’ argument was an old favorite.

Abandoning his abuse of the piano, Lestat strode purposefully over and threw himself dramatically on the divan, on the opposite side of his tormentor. Lifting one of his long legs, he used the heel of his boot to fold down the newspaper Louis was reading with a crunch of paper, forcing them to be face to face.

Louis withdrew his hands from the crumpled pages with a sigh and rested his palm upon Lestat’s ankle unconsciously. He cursed himself for even saying anything, since now he knew that Lestat would cling to his acknowledgement like a leech, as he always did. Louis wasn’t sure if Lestat truly believed the things he was saying, or if this was just another attempt at enticement. In any case, Louis had learned to tune it out. He looked up at Lestat’s scowling face before saying, “I hardly need to be grateful when this place is in fact under _my_ name, every single thing within is bought with _my_ money—”

" _Please,”_ the elder vampire scoffed mirthlessly, gesturing around the lavish room; to the Ming vase, the Turkish carpet, the Egyptian curtains billowing in the heady evening breeze from the balcony window.

"We both know that if you had furnished this place yourself we’d be sitting on crates and barrels and clothed in rags. It’s only my sense of taste and _savoir faire_ in these matters that allows us any semblance of comfort.”

Louis waited until Lestat was finished interrupting before continuing. “... And the whims of others are the very _least_ of your concerns.”

Lestat snorted. “You thankless wretch, you do not even notice it. It is thanks to the very blood in my veins that you live! Not to mention, my every DAY is spent tirelessly protecting you from the void of guilt-ridden hermit living into which you continually threaten to hurl yourself. I daresay I bare the only modicum of appreciation for fine arts and culture in this household! I can only hope our daughter follows my example, as I’d rather her back on the street than wallowing in your squalor and the ashes of your worthless estate.”

Before Louis let Lestat’s nonsense get to his head, he took a deep, silent breath. Lestat’s desperation astounded him. It wasn’t quite funny anymore.

“My, how numerous these charges are!” He said to Lestat, laughing softly through his teeth. “It’s a damn shame that I only hold guilt for one of them.” Louis was not a liar, and Lestat could smell a lie like he could sense the blood of a lone man miles away.

“As for Claudia,” he continued, “she will become who she becomes, with or without us to indoctrinate her.” Guilt, familiar but nonetheless painful, spiked in his throat again at the mention of her, as it always had. It was fortunate that this was taking place while she was away, hunting on her own. Perhaps it _was_ a good idea to allow it. Another victory for Lestat, he supposed.

“Criticism is only what you deserve, _mon petit râleur_. It is a labor of love.” Lestat snapped back sharply. 

“On a fine day, you are my companion, on a blessed day, you are my lover, but at the worst of times you are my peevish ward and I cannot hope to corral two children at once.”

Lestat was _usually_ a steady match for Louis in all manner of wit, possessing a quickness to his repartee that rendered him a significantly worthy competitor. With his sharp tone and extensive vocabulary, he always ended up creating the verbal equivalent of hitting someone in the face with a pair of opera gloves. Which was convenient, especially whenever he didn’t have a physical pair handy.

“If we are talking financially, Lestat,” Louis replied, “I believe the ward in question is you.” His words leapt from his lips without cognition now, his mind blindly set on deflecting every statement Lestat made.

Lestat flashed a knowing glance, nearly akin to pity. “You may deny whatever you like, but there is nobody left in this world who knows you better than I…”

Unfortunately, his statement rang true. Louis’ mother and sister were gone from him. Lestat and Claudia were all he had. It was cruel, what Lestat had said; it had hurt Louis in a minute way, but it was true.

“It’s no use.” Lestat threw up his hands helplessly, letting them flop back onto the embroidered velvet upholstery, lolling his head back to stare at the ceiling and its intricate gold-leafed molding. At this angle, he could at least reasonably attempt to hide the smirk of victory that curled at the corner of his lip.

“How I tire of your feigned innocence. You think yourself so high minded for your moral prattling, when in reality both know you take a sick and wicked pleasure in seeing me so woebegone.” 

Lestat brought his head up again, eyes narrowed. “You are _lucky_ I am a _gentleman_ ,” he sneered, haughtily, basking in the glow of this newly gained attention. “Or I have no doubt you would have already succumbed to my far superior seductive wiles. It is my personal conviction that you already _have_ and are in fact as tormented by your punishment as I…” 

Wishful thinking perhaps, but he'd read a philosopher once who claimed that to speak something was to manifest its truth. 

He moved the boot in Louis’ lap to nudge playfully at his knee.

Louis had watched Lestat as he prattled on, listening to him. But his attention lay on Lestat’s appearance. His hair looked almost unreal, shining like the scales of a fish under the moonlight. And his smile, though malicious, made Louis’ lips almost part in a grin himself. He felt warm at the sight of Lestat’s joy, and his shameless love for him revealed itself once again. It was a feeling purer than the victorious one felt after making Lestat so frustrated. He gave Lestat’s ankle a slight squeeze, as if to say, _I love you, but you’re being a fool._

Lestat had a look in his eyes that gleamed ‘aren’t I sweet?’ and Louis almost allowed him a moment of smugness, but instead decided to shatter it like porcelain dishware with his response.

“I believe you just contradicted yourself, Lestat. Which is it? Do I love to punish you, or do I hate it? Because I do not believe I can be both at once.”

Lestat’s brow furrowed, affronted. It was clearly jarring for him to be called out in the middle of one of his lyrical monologues and he snarled in frustration, trying obviously to find a way to turn his mistake in his favor.

“Well, I—You— _Allez! Fils de pute_ , you know what I mean!” He shook an accusatory finger. “You—you—ridiculous dichotomy of a person!” 

But the insult held no menace now. For the first time that night he allowed genuine mirth to tickle his features as his afflicted persuasion crumbled into laughter. He hung his golden head, massaged his temples, chuckling. 

Louis made sure to stare at the once-suave Lestat as he sputtered and tripped over his own words. His chest filled with playful glee at Lestat’s defeat, his admittances. So much so that he allowed himself to laugh silently.

“ _Laisse-moi tranquille,_ this is all your fault.” Lestat lamented. “You see what your petty abstinence has done? I am ruined. You have robbed me of reason.” 

Sitting up, he shuffled closer to lay his head on Louis’ firm shoulder, looking up at him with a mocking little pout. Louis instinctively stretched out his arm and wrapped it around him, catching himself ready to forgive Lestat, as he always did, like it was muscle memory.

“Come, you must shed this pointless quarrel,” Lestat huffed. “I’m a demon, I’m a sinner, I’m incorrigible. FINE. Hate me if you will, I know that you are only my own…”

The response hung in the air a moment, drawing a dejected sigh from Louis, “Oh Lestat, why do you feel you have to win my attention by force? Is my continued presence here somehow not enough for you?”

“Well why do you insist on playing so—”

Louis flicked Lestat’s nose playfully as he spoke, making the elder vampire recoil mid-sentence. “—Hard to get.” He finished, testily, eyes narrowed.

“You know I cannot hate you,” Louis continued, “yet still you exhaust and torment me.”

“And yet you tease me as though you wish to incite my ire.”

Louis stared at him for a moment. “Well, you may believe what you wish, I suppose,” he said as he broke their eye contact.

Louis thumbed the silk of Lestat’s shirt. Lestat’s eyes followed those nimble fingers as they meandered their way down his collar. His long, blonde hair tumbled over Louis’ shoulder and down his back. The metallic smell of blood stuck to it. Underneath, there was his unique scent, indescribable, but comforting and familiar to Louis. He wondered if Lestat felt the same comfort with _him_. Or if he was capable of learning to stop and enjoy a quiet moment at all, to begin with.

A moment more passed, then Lestat caught Louis’ hand with his own. Lestat’s flesh was cold to the touch, lacking the fresh, throbbing warmth of the kill. A hint at the secret death of his unnatural body. He played with Louis’ fingers, examining them as though they were foreign to him, then entwined them with his own.

Though he remained on guard, Louis was pleasantly surprised by Lestat’s tenderness. He felt their pulses on their wrists. Wordlessly, Lestat leaned closer, allowing himself to be enveloped in the heady, fragrant scent of his fledgeling, helpless and doting, before him, and Louis foolishly welcomed it with a smile. 

He wrapped his arms around Lestat and basked in the stillness. Lestat seemed to fall perfectly into his embrace, feeling his body relax and settle. _Little devil_ , Louis thought, _this will not make me forgive you_.

He was right in thinking so; Lestat’s every moment and action had an ulterior motive. 

This creature who would live for eternity, obsessed with spending every second as though it were his last. He had no time to stall. In stillness, he ran the risk of falling victim to guilt and the horrors of his own mind. Contemplation and introspection, and other such distasteful hang-ups.

Though maker and fledgling could not see each others’ minds, Louis had known Lestat for so long that he might as well have been able to. Lestat was likely going to try and seduce the problem away, as he did with every issue, romantic or otherwise. Lestat was only so sweet to him when he wanted something. Always calling him _mon coeur_ and kissing his nose and whispering. Louis wondered if this had always been an act. Could he have still been such a tender man if he had not tasted the blood of his maker?

Lestat buried his face in the crook of Louis’ tender neck with a noise akin to a keening purr, grazing the pale flesh behind his ear with his teeth. Not biting or even nibbling, it was simply a dominant, possessive reminder of his presence. 

Instinctively Louis’ hand flew to Lestat’s, which cradled the other side of Louis’ head and neck, all thoughts ripped to shreds at the sensation. Lower Lestat explored, tracing the jugular down the elegant column of Louis’ throat. Louis took in breath shakily and dreaded the moment that Lestat would break the skin, but he never did. The fangs hovered just close enough to raise the fine hairs on the back of Louis’ neck, his breath warming the frozen skin. He pressed a kiss to Louis’ neck before pulling swiftly away with a smug and goading grin.

Louis put his fingertips to the place where Lestat had kissed him. Another moment ruined by Lestat’s personal agenda where the only goal was, apparently, ravishment. Finally, Louis looked back into Lestat’s eyes, brow furrowed. He felt as if he were being consumed by fire, his frustration building until he would go off. He could have his way with him right now. It would be so easy to plunge his fingers into that silky blond hair and pull him down onto the carpet. Hell, Lestat would probably giggle like a goddamned hyena the entire time, as was in his nature, every time he had won.

Louis figured Lestat thought that this was punishment enough for his mockery. Even now, his eyes were saying, _go on, do something about it._

_Maybe I will_ , Louis thought. Oh, how satisfying it would be to wipe that smile off of Lestat’s face. But that would, unfortunately, only permit the cycle to go on for eternity. And it’s not punishment if they enjoy it.

Lestat had curled himself back into the crook of Louis’ arm. “I am never denied my wants,” he purred. “You should know better.”

Louis took a deep, restrained breath and relaxed his face. There were other ways to wipe a smile off of a face.

“Never denied your wants, hmm?” He whispered, placing his palm on Lestat’s cold cheek. Lestat’s doe eyes automatically fluttered closed at his lover’s touch. He allowed Louis’ firm hand to trace the marble hinge of his cut jawline, his mouth hanging ever so slightly ajar as a shuddered sigh emerged from somewhere deep within him. He let it fall, trembling and flighty, like a feather. So immersed was he in his fancy, in the promise of release, finally, from this sickening battle of wills.

Louis continued, “That’s true, I suppose.” His fingers travelled down Lestat’s face, down to his jawline.

He thumbed Lestat’s chin and slowly moved his own face closer. “And perhaps, _mon amour_ , you will get what you want, but that all depends…”

He leaned still closer, his hand coming to rest loosely around Lestat’s neck.

Lestat could feel Louis’ breath now, a paradox of the vampire anatomy, even as he felt his own chest rise. Reaching up, he curled a strand of his own blonde curls behind his ear. A conquering smile curled on his waiting lips, anticipating the incomparable sensation of having them prised apart. 

But it was a blessing that never came.

Louis slowed to a halt before he would play into Lestat’s hand. He gave his neck a sudden, momentary squeeze. “Get rid of it,” he said in a deadly whisper.

Lestat’s eyes snapped open at once, no longer clouded and peaceful, only dilated and alert.

Before he could attempt anything else, Louis pulled away, gave Lestat’s cheek a gentle pat, and stood up, rolling up his abandoned newspaper and throwing it into the fire. As he walked out of the parlor, he couldn’t help but congratulate himself.

Just like that, like God himself, Lestat’s own sweet saint had abandoned him. 

Lestat barely had a moment to grieve the sensation of Louis’ hands on him, before his angel, his demon, his complete IDIOT of a vampire was gone, and he was left sitting on the divan like the king of fools. 

He was immediately wracked with a pang of emptiness, as though something deep and solid within him had been snatched away and left a gaping hole in its absence. How close he had been it seemed. Surely he did not deserve to have his emotions toyed with. To have his seductor, his greatest temptation, dangled carelessly in front of him like a worm on a string. 

With a whiny, indignant noise that was so whiny and indignant it would render all other whiny, indignant noises irrelevant, lest they pale in the attempt to emulate it, Lestat was on his feet again. Fangs bared, he seethed seeing Louis so nonchalant. 

“Wha—You—You—YOU LITTLE—UGH! You’ll pay for that!” He shouted helplessly at Louis’ back, stomping his boot childishly on the floor, but he was already out of the room. It was difficult to even enjoy watching him leave, Lestat was far too furious. 

Lestat was left alone in the parlor, staring blankly at the place where Louis had just disappeared. Even in his anger he dared not pursue him, for fear of pushing his punishment further. 

The thought condemned him to simply remain standing in the room, enraged. 

Only when he was sure of Louis’ distance did he resort to pacing the floor, kicking petulantly at the rug, his mind a wash of desire and half-formed, semi prepared insults.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mon petit râleur - "my little whiner"  
> Allez! Fils de pute - "Ack! Son of a bitch"  
> Laisse-moi tranquille - "Leave me alone"  
> mon coeur - "my heart"  
> mon amour - "my love"


	2. Sodom & Gomorrah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis, encouraged by Claudia, takes a walk to clear his head. He returns to nothing short of pandemonium.

Departing from the parlor, Louis nearly ran smack into Claudia, who was just cresting the top of the stairway. As if his joy could not be multiplied enough! The sight of Claudia’s face, flushed with blood, made his smile only grow. A smile that faded suddenly when he saw her begin to lose her balance. She was forced to grab the railing to prevent her from tumbling, her rosy-cheeked porcelain face etched with surprise. “Louis! You frightened me!” 

“Oh, do forgive me,” Louis cried, taking hold of her shoulders to further steady her. He wanted to lift her little frame into his arms, but she had long since grown to hate being carried. He sufficed by stooping down to kiss her cheek in greeting.

“No matter, Louis, you need not trouble yourself.” She straightened upright and smoothed her gown. 

She had addressed him, as she always did, by Christian names. Since her birth, or re-birth, he had always been ‘Louis’ or ‘Dear Louis’.

(Lestat, meanwhile, changed titles regularly. In the beginning, he had been ‘Mother’ when she had been too young to know any better— it had humored him to no end. Growing up he was always ‘Papa’. But now, in this strange era of womanhood in a child’s frame, he was simply Lestat, unless she was trying to get money or favors out of him.

The change was always calculated and entertaining to see. The moment she saw an expensive gown or premiere shawl, she could slip so nimbly into the costume of a child, all maturity flying to the wind as she hung on his arm and doted on him in singsong. And he could refuse her nothing.)

Even now, for an evening’s hunt, she was a dream in a little yellow taffeta frock and a white fox fur cloak that framed her hair like a halo. Silk gloved hands came to dab a hint of crimson from the corner of her lip, as she looked up at her surrogate father with wise reverence and cocked an eyebrow, belying perception beyond her stature.

Louis’ joy at seeing her was momentary, as the exhaustion from his and Lestat’s battle of Gettysburg-level devastation suddenly crashed down onto him all at once, right in front of his little fledgling. Until now, he had always tried to keep his head high for her. This break of character warranted strong feelings of shame.

Claudia, however, was always so gentle with him. “You look distraught, Louis. Whatever is the matter?” 

“Nothing, Claudia, my love, just—” Louis whipped his head to face the parlor, hoping he was being heard, “—just a spot of trouble with your father, I’m afraid.”

Angry muttering from the parlor caused Claudia’s other eyebrow to slowly rise, and her lips pursed into a thin line. “Mm. Another churlish brawl that I’m considered too childish and infantile to know the meaning of? What was your crime this time?”

Louis broke into slight laughter. “Too infantile? Never, my darling. And, you are right—at least about how this is yet again something petty and unnecessary. But my only crime, perhaps, was insisting Lestat act like a gentleman, after failing on that front so tragically.”

God, he hoped Lestat could hear him. He felt himself getting drunk on this new power he had discovered, worrying he could be taking it too far, even--driving Lestat _too_ mad. But he refused to apologize when all he did was make a simple request. A more fitting punishment would be nothing short of public humiliation. Louis felt his desires fire up again, his gaze lingering at the parlor entrance.

“Ah, you have committed a devious crime indeed, then. And a foolhardy one.” Claudia responded, a pointed smile creeping across her cherubic features. Her fangs were stubby and gently pointed like a kitten’s teeth. It caused her to be more messy and feral when she fed, a trait Lestat had always found absurdly endearing. “To expect adult behavior from a child. How utterly bizarre. Where _do_ you get the notion.” 

She smirked. Obviously, she had no patience for them, and Louis knew this well. She never did. At times like these she would become a ghost. Always flitting out of the room whenever Louis and Lestat entered at the same time, never saying a word. She was, no doubt, above it all. Perhaps she couldn’t understand why these wars even occurred. To her, emotions were simple, unchanged from the form she was forever bound to. Louis saw the same immaturity from Lestat, come to think of it, hardly out of his adolescence when he was turned.

The thought made him pity Lestat. A feeling which he did not hate himself for—he still loved him, after all. The deepest part of himself hated to see Lestat unhappy, no matter what the circumstances.

Louis hoped against all hope that Lestat felt the same. He felt his heart ache in his chest. _Can you feel that, Lestat?_ He thought. _Can you hear a heart break as you can hear its beat? Could you be kind to it?_

No, Lestat would only mock his pain once again. As he always did. For fifty years now. A dejected sigh escaped Louis' lips.

Claudia’s perfect small hand came to rest with gentle assurance on Louis’ forearm, disturbing his thoughts. He took this hand, hoping it would offer some comfort.

Wordlessly she took it and motioned for him to go down onto one knee.. She demanded to be spoken to as an equal in serious matters, and equal footing, equal height, was par for the course. 

Now eye to eye, she cupped his cheek in her hand and turned his head gently towards her. 

Louis was struck by this gesture, almost matronly in nature. He gave a soft smile. “Oh, ma fille. I want more than anything to reason with him, reach an understanding, but a part of me believes that he is terrified of being reasonable. Perhaps something happened,” Louis was talking almost to himself now, “something that caused so much pain that he closed himself off to us. Oh, Claudia, I know a good, kind man is there, but I am at a loss on how to find it.”

He could see Claudia’s eyes begin to glaze over, an expression of boredom creeping onto her face. He put his palm to his forehead and looked down. “Oh, dear, look at me,” he said. “We must look like fools to you.” He looked to Claudia for something that could give him some contentment. He found it in abundance.

Claudia rolled her large baby doll eyes. “Perhaps. But only because you are so burdened. Dearest ‘papa—’” The name dripped with sarcasm, “--is never weighed with conscience so. You have known him, as I have, to feast like a hedonist, and gorge until satisfied as the beasts do. Perhaps this is why he roams so carefree for the feelings of others, while you are burdened so.”

Claudia’s thumb caressed Louis’ high, noble cheekbone. 

“You are cold. You have not eaten. Perhaps this is truly the source of your misfortunes. I find that after a kill, all things become clear. I advise you—take your leave of this place. But stay near. Indulge in your hunger, but reside closeby. I can tell he misses you sorely in your absence. Take your fill, lay down the baggage of this encounter. When you return, in the bliss of the sanguine, I promise this will all seem a foolish dream!” ”

How eloquent she was! Louis marvelled at these words, so remorseless and psychopathic, spoken in a voice like a soft embrace, from the face of an angel. Surely she could not have learned that from him or Lestat. And she was right. Plain and simple. The warmth of mortal blood was almost made to quell a vampire’s dismay. Louis would not refuse, but still, he wanted to make Claudia understand.

“I will go,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I doubt he will try to follow me, but if he does, please try to prevent him. I am not asking you to involve yourself. I will just have to owe you a favor.”

“I am glad to hear you speak sense! Now, go my darling. Tonight, in the Hotel de Orleans, the creeping bottom feeders of society await their blissful demise!”

She flashed a grin with that bon vivant spirit, one inherited by her creator.  
  
“Alright, alright, _ma chérie_ , you’ve convinced me,” Louis said with a small chuckle. “I’ll be home before long.” He grinned and kissed her cheek.

As he did this, Louis felt his eyes begin to sting, a prelude to tears. He had not cried in a long time, despite having many good reasons to. He doubted this was an indicator of strength. Blinking the feeling back, and with a slow, deep breath, he hopped past Claudia down the stairs and to the front door.

He stopped before grabbing his own coat, his eyes falling to Lestat’s, the velvet glowing in the lamplight. Louis remembered the night that Lestat had purchased the set together. It was one of their good nights. Lestat claimed he had never seen a color so similar to Louis’ eyes, and for that he must have it.

He ran his fingers over the fabric that truly did nearly match his eyes. Louis would have blushed if he had the blood to spare. After quickly searching in vain for any witnesses, he flung the coat around his shoulders and was out of the house in seconds.

He walked out onto the streets and wondered what had just happened; Lestat forbade sharing clothes, preferring to simply buy a duplicate. Even if they no longer knew which garments belonged to one or the other, he still would insist. The thought of breaking the rules had certainly stirred Louis’ heart, but he knew there must be some deeper reason for such an impulsive decision.

He was walking fast, soon onto the Rue Bourbon, further from the center of town. It was almost desolate, with not a mortal in sight. The chilling wind that blew through the tunnel-like streets forced him to pop the collar on the stolen coat, just as the silence brought his troubling thoughts to the forefront. He again smelled Lestat, and as he wore something that his lover had also put his arms through, it felt like an indirect embrace. Devoid of malice, frustration.

He did not know why it moved him so tonight. It’s not as if he had never touched this particular article of clothing before. He would help Lestat into and out of it most nights. Lestat would, in turn, do the same for Louis. It was a learned courtesy for them both, which was extended to Claudia once she arrived. But he felt so _close_ to Lestat, even when the streetlights dimmed and he turned onto the Marigny, his mind buzzing as he walked. Perhaps that was why Lestat did not want to share anything with him, from shoes to his own heart; it was too intimate. Louis was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he quite forgot to feel any sort of guilt once he finally killed. It was as trivial as stopping to swat a fly.

Louis felt as if a switch had flipped. Too intimate! Even during their most intimate moments, Louis felt as though Lestat was keeping him at arm's length, always soiling the tenderest passion with positively filthy language. It was only at times when Louis hushed him that Lestat, a little more obedient, let the wall crack just enough for Louis to look in.

He had been walking for about an hour, and now he spun on his heels back towards the Rue Royale. He looked down at the coat once more. And suddenly, with horror, he wondered if his waistcoat matched it. The concern was so great that he came to a full halt to inspect it. His waistcoat was a deep brown, the color of an oak. The emerald velvet appeared to compliment it, to Louis’ relief.

As he resumed his gait, he felt a pit open in his stomach.

Dear God, he was turning into Lestat.

The house looked normal as Louis approached. His only care was not alerting anyone to his arrival, wanting to put Lestat’s coat away as discreetly as possible. Though he was in better spirits, the familiar pit opened in his stomach once more as, for nearing the entrance to the extravagant town estate, he saw François, the buxom scullery maid and Seamus, their carriage boy, both stood cowering outside the door, shivering slightly in the cold, looking frightened.

Louis called to them, and they turned as he quickened his gait. “What are you doing out here? You must be frozen.”

As their master approached, Seamus doffed his hat warily. “‘Evening, Mister Louis. I wouldn’t go in there if I were you!”

“It’s awful.” François shook her head hysterically. “There have been nights like it but not like this! Please, sir, we cannot go back in. Not again.” She buried her head in her hands and Seamus put a hand gently on her shoulder and nodding grimly toward the door.

Their explanations didn’t seem to make much sense to Louis, which concerned him all the more. He dismissed them for the night and stepped into what could only be described as chaos.

Ornamental baroque statuettes from the mantle lay broken on the carpet, the porcelain of a broken doll’s head crunched underfoot. A broken teacup lay shattered against the wall, and a stain of red on the wallpaper from where it had been flung.

But above all, there was the loud, torrential and unmistakable noise of someone crying from the upstairs rooms. 

Thoughts sped in and out of his mind so quickly he could hardly perceive them. Lestat couldn’t have been behind this; his anger only manifested verbally. But Louis could not allow himself to believe the alternative. Claudia had outgrown tantrums, in fact, he could not remember her ever throwing one in the first place. 

The screaming continued. Big, choking, melodramatic sobs, each falling into the next as though it was impossible to stem them.

“ _Mon Dieu_ ,” Louis whispered as he followed the sound. Something truly indescribable must have happened to make her weep like this. He did not believe even Lestat was capable of garnering such a reaction. The curiosity was boiling inside of him, adrenaline spilling into his every limb and digit until he was shaking violently.

The sobbing grew loud again, and now Louis could hear Lestat’s voice, desperately attempting to placate, an endeavor not in tune with his specialities:

“For God’s sake, Claudia, _mon ange!_ Not you as well!”

“NO! I d-don’t like it! I want it gone! It’s scary!” 

It was almost surreal to hear her this way, though it was indeed Claudia’s voice, sniveling and whimpering in the most inconceivable manner, carrying none of her inner wisdom, her maturity, or her womanly graces. 

She sounded like a five-year old again. 

Rounding the corner to where the bedroom door stood ajar, he could see her now, collapsed on the carpet, and despite Lestat’s desperate interjections, she to kick her feet and beat her first upon the floor as though she were possessed, her little chest heaving with emotion, her baby doll eyes brimming and puffy, looking at something across the room in horror.

“But can’t you just avoid it?” 

“NO! Get _RID_ OF IT. I don’t WANT IT IN THE HOUSE!” 

“But it’s not even in your room!” Lestat pleaded. “How is it any concern of yours?! Be reasonable!”

She _screamed_ with an almost unnatural pitch and intention that threatened to smash the windows. Louis stood stunned, unable to move for sheer disbelief.

“I WON’T BE REASONABLE,” her wailing continued, “I HATE IT! I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I WANT IT AWAY THIS _INSTANT!"_

She shuddered and bowed her curled head in another cascade of tears. 

Through her tightly clamped hands, she blubbered weakly, and let out another piteous howl.

“My m-my mother had one l-like it. I c-cant l-l-look at it. It f-frightens me.” 

The performance was as finely tuned as anything by Gautier, Stringberg, or Verne, and as predictable as Chekhov. 

“Oh, _mon petit chou!_ I did not know! How horrible for you.”

Claudia only whimpered.

“I d-dont w-want to think of h-her. Get RID of it! You will, Papa, won’t you? P-please. It f-f-frightens me.” 

“ _Bien sûr!_ Of course, _ma parfaite petite princesse. Anything!_ If you truly wish it so.” His voice was tinged with obvious reluctance, souring the end of his tone. 

But before he could voice any other protest, Claudia went in for the kill. 

Looking up, bottom lip trembling, her cherubic cheeks damp and shining, she raised her arms and silently made little grabbing motions with her with her small fingers towards her guardian. 

That was the finishing move. She had played the ultimate weapon.

The game was hers in an instant as Lestat gasped with insurmountable affection. 

“Oh, _Mon reine amour!_ My poor dear one. My little girl. Come here! Come to me!” 

In an instant Lestat had swept her up into his arms, where she clung to him and buried her face in his shoulder. He rubbed little circles into her back, kissing her hair, cooing gentle loving platitudes into her ear. 

Emerging from the bedroom, looking disheveled and weary, he held a little bundle with tangled golden hair in one arm, and a small wooden crucifix in the other.

Seeing Louis startled him and he seemed for a second to be physically biting down his embarrassment at being so easily swayed against his bargain. He cleared his throat and sniffed haughtily.

“I see you’re back then. Deciding to leave when our child was in the most distress! I would have appreciated the help!”

Louis was out of breath, and though he finally found his voice, it trembled. “Dear God, what is the matter?” He cried, forgetting the argument and rushing over to them. He peered at his daughter’s red and bloodstained face. “Claudia? Why do you weep, _ma fille?"_

Louis’ eyes then moved to Lestat; his hair was unkempt, his collar messy, and his expression one of bewilderment. _Poor Lestat_ , Louis thought. Though he loved Claudia, he was never able to dry her tears, all too often becoming emotional himself. But when all seemed lost he could just hand her over to Louis and all would be well again. To have over an hour and a half with nothing and no one, no wonder he looked on the verge of tears himself.

His mind returned to Claudia. She was not a child anymore. Louis had not seen her cry since she was very little. And now she acted as if she were possessed by the Devil himself. But he could not dwell on this long; the first order of business was damage control.

“Hush now, _mon chéri._ " Louis took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “There now, it’s alright, Louis is here.” He held his hands out to her, wordlessly asking Lestat’s permission to take her.

Lestat was reluctant, clutching her close with a protective hesitance, but it was Claudia herself who gently tugged his lapel and reached over to Louis, and Lestat allowed the transition to progress, already lamenting the gentle weight of her in his arms. 

When rested against Louis, Claudia’s cries ended abruptly, and she stilled against him, keen and alert, face buried in his coat. A coat that Lestat found awfully familiar.

Lestat’s eyes narrowed. “Is that _my_ coat?” 

Though Louis’ cheeks flushed scarlet, his parental instincts won over, and he brushed off any of Lestat’s off-topic remarks.

“Lestat, that cannot be what you are thinking at a time like this!” He hissed.

Lestat balked indignantly at Louis’ tone. 

“You think _I_ did this?! How dare you! No, she started this regrettable outburst entirely by herself!” 

“Then would either of you please explain what in the hell happened here? What is making our Claudia behave in such an unladylike manner!”

“Ha! You may well ask!” Lestat snapped. “What the hell do you think?”

Louis furrowed his brow at the small object in Lestat’s hand. The crucifix. His lips parted as if to ask _what is that doing here?_

Lestat brandished the cross, wiggling it between his fingers. “THIS. This ridiculous gift, this harmless joking trifle, that has suddenly become the bane of everyone’s existence.” 

He threw up his hands in agitation, before pressing his fingertips to his forehead with a long sigh. 

“She says it reminds her of _her mother._ ” The last two words were mouthed. Rolling his eyes, he made the universal sort of shrugging gesture for ‘whatever, I guess, what can you do’. 

Louis felt his arms tense slightly. _Her mother? She has no memory of her mother, she told me so._ He grew more and more confused. And all he seemed to be able to say in reply was, “Good Lord…”

Lestat continued. “I had retired to the boudoir to collect my thoughts, and found her there, crying her eyes out.” Claudia shifted silently against Louis’ chest at this. “I have half a mind to suspect YOU behind this. I wouldn't put it past you, to _pollute_ my own daughter against me!”

“Lestat,” Louis scoffed, offended, “I am not some cowardly lowlife who would use our child as a weapon! I have at least _some_ respect for your dignity.”

Louis again turned his attention to Claudia, still unable to believe what he had heard. No, it was impossible. Claudia _would not_ behave like this. It was a total break of character. Unless...

Louis’ eyes widened.

Unless, that was exactly what she was doing. She was feigning all terror, deliberately manipulating the love of her maker to her will. He did not think Claudia incapable of it, to be cold and calculating as she always was, beneath her mask of crocodile tears.

But with this speculation came more questions: _how could she have possibly known about that cross? And even so, how could she have known that it was at all offensive to Louis?_

Lestat was rambling again. “And of course I couldn’t find where you’d gone! You could have abandoned me! You could have been on a boat halfway to the Orient. How would I have known? Storming out there like an idiot, hunting alone when the night grows ever younger. You know NOTHING. You could have been killed.” 

There was sharpness to this last remark, a terse, broken quality to his voice as he refused to meet Louis’ eyes.

Louis listened as the tightness in his chest grew, and Claudia’s words came back to him, _I can tell he misses you sorely in your absence._ At the time he had brushed it off, but now the proof stood there on the hardwood floor. Lestat’s own words came to him as well, _I cannot hope to corral two children at once._ And now here Louis was, holding someone who was crying likely false tears, standing in front of a man consumed in paranoia. Louis could see the obvious irony, but it was not amusing.

The wall was cracking again.

For a few seconds, Louis said nothing. He knew he had to choose his response carefully if he had any intention of assuaging some of this needless anxiety. He did not want repeats of the nights they would see Macbeth. Nights of pure bliss shattered by the deadly concoction of Lestat’s fragile confidence and Louis’ inability to recognize it.

 _‘Why would you ever think that?’_ Louis proposed to himself. _No, no, do not treat his fears so lightly. He will think you are mocking him._

_‘Are you afraid I will leave you?’ No. He will think you are putting words in his mouth._

“Lestat,” Louis began, as kindly as he could, “Please forgive me for leaving without telling you. You are right, it is dangerous.” Louis took a cautious step towards him. “But I ask you also to believe this.” He made sure to look directly into his eyes as he spoke.

“Lestat… you are my family. And I do not abandon my family.” He gave a small smile. “How pitiful my life would be if not for my Lestat and Claudia?”

Lestat processed all this with his arms crossed, chewing his tongue testily, but surprisingly, saying nothing. He scoffed, but gave no biting retort further than that, his demeanor shifting under the other vampire’s gentle reassurance. Though he still remained closed and unyielding, his eyes spoke for him in the way he looked at Louis, as if at any moment his beloved could run from him, never to return. As if every look was his last.

“Pitiful indeed. You would have no life at _all,_ ” He muttered nastily, though it was more out of need to have the last word than a desire to stir the pot any further. Claudia’s explosive and _expensive_ bout of violence had left him. Tired? Withered? What was the word?

_Drained._

No, that was absurd. Still, the thought gave Lestat a little chill. He felt violated somehow, but pushed it to the back of his mind.

Louis let Lestat respond without giving one retort. He felt that doing so would shatter Lestat’s final defense against breaking down entirely. But he made sure to convey that he was not ignoring Lestat either.

Claudia, meanwhile, had actually gone still since they had started talking, perhaps too bored to continue. Louis figured he had better set her down and take care of her before he continued with the more daunting task of taking care of Lestat.

“Are you feeling better now, my dear?” Louis said to her, kneeling down to meet her eyes. 

Both Lestat and Claudia said, “Yes” at once. (Although, Lestat, realizing his mistake, immediately looked at his fingernails and tried to act as though he had not.)

Louis pretended not to acknowledge Lestat’s little slip. But he couldn’t help a grin, grateful that his face was not visible to Lestat.

He continued to Claudia, “Now don’t you worry about another thing. Your father and I will sort it all out, you’ll see.” Like he had done with Lestat, albeit more gently, he pressed a finger to her little nose and embraced her. She maintained her heart-rending little pout as he did, but allowed herself a quick, fanged grin when she could get away with it. He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, almost inaudibly, “You sly fox, I’ll deal with you later.”

In a whisper, she responded, “A brilliant performance, no? You will find I am more than you take me for.”

He pulled away and resumed his happy tone. “Now, why don’t you get out of those clothes and wash your face for me? We will be there in a little bit after we’ve fixed everything.” Claudia’s grin disappeared again, and wordlessly she trundled off to her room, skirts flouncing behind.

Now the two men were alone again, and the same heavy pall that had been left in Louis’ absence resurfaced and hung heavily between them. He turned to Lestat, and though he let his lips relax, he kept the smile within his eyes. He had to be cautious, now. One wrong move and Lestat would never trust him again, if he had even trusted him at all.

Lestat still refused to look at Louis, feeling overly exposed and raw. And hot. And fussy. And tired. And neglected. And nostalgic. And hungry. And angry. And restless. And—

He was suddenly aware of the crucifix in his hand. With one last glare at it, Lestat sighed and chucked it casually, yet vindictively at Louis.

Louis flinched when the cross arced in his direction, cursing the way his eyes snapped shut, his teeth and fists clenched, his head twitched away. 

“Here,” Lestat hissed. “There’s your precious Christ. Robbed of the chance to see us make love. _Pauvre batard._ Probably would have been the most interesting thing to happen to him since he was fucking crucified.”

The cross landed clumsily at Louis’ feet, and he stooped to pick it up. It was still horrifically ugly, neither capturing the sacrifice nor the sanctity of the event with any sort of grace. He suddenly found himself chuckling. What a stupid thing to uproot an entire week for! A week he could have spent with Lestat at the theatre, on the cobblestone roads, in his bed. “I think anyone who has their hands and feet nailed to a tree would have more pressing matters to attend to,” he said before dropping the abomination and kicking it nonchalantly away.

Lestat snorted. “Well? Are you happy? Does this satisfy you? I hope it does, because you’ve already proven I cannot, and it would be best for _one_ person to be satisfied this evening.”

Louis took a few slow steps towards him. “Happy, Lestat?” he asked. “Am I happy that I had to step over broken glass and overturned chairs to find you near-collapse thanks to Claudia’s wiles? All due to an inconsequential trinket that, may I remind you, I started the fight over? No, darling, I am not happy.

“Am I satisfied,” Louis continued, now only two paces away from Lestat, “from seeing you suffer? From seeing you so unhappy? No. That will never satisfy me.” He wanted to move closer, touch him, hold him. Kiss the pain away. He even lifted his hand slightly, but then he decided against it and let it drop, opting instead to hold his hands behind his back.

“Believe it or not, Lestat, I am only truly satisfied when you are truly happy.” Louis was surprised at how steady his voice was. His heart still raced in his chest, though he had tried to remain calm, and his hands trembled against his back. Every word was scrutinized in his head. He hoped he was doing the right thing.

Though Lestat was withered considerably by his ordeal, Louis’ sentiments seemed to breathe new life into him. Though his arms remained folded, Lestat, for all his fire and tenacity, seemed to relax slightly. Try as he might, he was not immune to such things as flattery and tenderness, and to the former of the two he was especially susceptible. Louis knew exactly what to say, what to do, and everything he did seemed to comfort him.

That was, in part, what had first drawn Lestat to Louis. Even drunken, miserable, and filthy. The way he looked, the way he moved. As if he had been sculpted by the heavens to be admired, and he did not even know it.

Even something as basic as seeing Louis in front of him again, safe and sound, put him at ease. 

_How pathetic it is,_ Lestat chided himself, that he depended on the other so. How he craved companionship; how he _needed_ other people. If he could erase the trait he would. How much simpler his life could have been. How much time he had wasted, swooning and mourning over the people who left him. He would have given anything to have left the loves of his past _in_ his past. To dispose of that wrenching, needling heartache that came with all those goodbyes.

The people in Lestat’s life had not cared so much for _him_ when they had disappeared. He had simply been a passing visitor, one chapter in their story.

Why was he thus cursed to have them imprinted on his heart?

There had been a quote he’d heard once, by that dear author he loved so well, Flaubert: ‘You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything.’ Lestat could claim both. Maybe that was why everything in his life was so damned overwhelming.

And as Louis’ words soothed and comforted Lestat like a balm, he struggled even now to conceal this stirring, lachrymose feeling in his heart.

If Lestat was truly the slave of praise and affection, perhaps it was better to embrace it. It is a fool who bites the hand that feeds him.Yet, if this entire disagreement had taught him anything, it was that when the feeding stops, you can bite all you like.

For a few moments more, the two of them simply stood, each taking in the other in tense silence. Louis’ mind was just as preoccupied as Lestat’s.

He was in awe of how radiantly beautiful Lestat was, despite everything. _And to think_ , Louis wondered, that Lestat had chosen _him!_ What had Lestat seen in him to make him look twice? Louis figured the least he could do was offer a semblance of comfort.

“Is there a place where I may sit, dear?” Louis finally said, warmly. “There must be a room in this house that Claudia has not _entirely_ demolished.” He held out his hand for Lestat to take. “And… it would please me if you were to accompany me.”

With a toss of his blonde hair, Lestat straightened up to full posture, and, after a moment of hesitation, he accepted the hand with grace. Louis’ gentle platitudes giving him a new vitality. Sustaining his hunger with the attention he starved for.

The question was phrased well enough to allow Lestat to play with it a little in a teasing manner. Hoping to see a new flush fill that beautiful face.

“You can _sit_ anywhere you like, _mon cher_ , but I have a couple of personal suggestions.”

It took Louis a second or two to comprehend Lestat’s innuendo. And this was exactly the reaction Lestat wanted, for how could he prevent how wide his eyes grew, the sudden heat that _did_ rise to his cheeks? For the smallest instant his impulsive response would be to scold Lestat for such a remark. But then he reasoned; Lestat’s sense of humor was woefully immature, nothing he could change, and something Louis would have to accept. With this rationale, Louis could finally allow it to be funny. And he let his eyes soften as he laughed. For good measure, however, he jabbed his shoulder gently against Lestat’s in retaliation.

“Oh, I don’t think I _want_ to know what those suggestions may be,” Louis replied, refusing to confirm Lestat's meaning. He figured he’d better not say any more on the subject, lest he should start to swoon from the embarrassment. Lestat meandered down the hall, leading him casually to the conservatory. 

Louis bathed in the comfort that he felt, despite the destruction that surrounded them. It all seemed to blur away when he felt the slight tug at his hand, the occasional squeeze. And the silence, _Lestat’s_ silence, was something to behold. How cruel that it took almost every bad thing in the world to finally mute his voice. As much as Louis enjoyed simply _being_ with Lestat, it still broke his heart to see him suffer so.

And it came to him like a slap across the face. Where was all that Christian guilt he had felt ever since that lonely and drunken night on his plantation so long ago? How long had it been since he had _really_ felt it, instead of only pretending it was there? And how could he have become so complacent in his life, not bothering to allow himself to change?

Perhaps it wasn’t just Lestat that had made his life miserable.

His mind became so muddled to the point where Louis finally decided to outright order the deprecating thoughts to piss off.

Despite the cold of the night, the plants were kept in heavy, humid condition. Through the glass and wrought iron ceiling, stars twinkled in their spheres. To the left, Claudia’s room, where one could hear her humming discordantly as she sketched. To the right, the door to their own suite hung ajar.

In the middle of the conservatory, a charming little bench sat nestled among the ferns and glossy leaves, which Lestat settled himself languidly, both arms spread along the back. He observed Louis expectantly, looking a bit impatient.

However, Louis did not sit down. Instead, he stood for a moment, simply admiring the view of Lestat. Always taking up as much space as possible. Never failing to make his every action demand acknowledgement. In this moment of peace, Louis could see how oddly endearing it was.

Lestat similarly enjoyed the view from his own angle. Watching this tall, dark, handsome man slowly fidget and blotch scarlet. It was such a delicious look on him, in all manner of ways, a sight for sore eyes tonight especially. Those sunken eyes, so hang-dog and sincere. His pouting lip, and gaunt, sickly features. Like some waxy green plant, kept in the dark corners of a room.

To see Louis brighten and dapple with a rush of blood in his veins, to hear his heart quicken, and know that he, Lestat, could affect his lover so. It was all the man could do to stop himself from attaching himself to Louis and nuzzling and teething at his supple flesh until his entire body tingled pink as his perfect face. What filthy red bites he could make on that sallow skin. Marking him as his own, even for the moment, his possession, never to be taken from him.

And speaking of possessions…

Louis looked down at his own hands that were now stroking the velvet sleeves of his—no, Lestat’s—coat. In all the commotion, he had never taken it off. “Yes,” he blurted out, genially, “this is your coat. I know, I know you do not like sharing your things. But—” he searched for the right words, “—I assure you, it was not to spite you.”

He walked up to the bench, still looking down, fiddling with the sleeves and collar. “If you wish,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly, “I will put it away this instant.” His eyes perked up to meet Lestat’s. “But, if it’s all the same to you, I would like to wear it a little longer. I’m afraid the night air would chill me otherwise.”

It wasn’t a _total_ lie, Louis thought as he finally sat down on the edge of the bench, knees turned to Lestat.

Lestat mulled this confession over for a second. On any other day, he would be incensed that his belongings had been tampered with. So dearly he wished for everything to be just so. His clothes were his very identity. To wear them was to know him, to _experience_ life through his perspective, and this was a privilege he could not allow most. Some of his best finery was so dear to him, though it could not even be worn: Somewhere in the attic, a disgusting, moth eaten old mangey cloak made of real wolf pelts sat rotting in a steamer trunk, where it was doomed to eternally remain. 

Seeing Louis in his coat felt slightly violating in the same way, but less so than he had feared. Now that he looked, it fit his lover rather nicely—amusing him how the sleeves encased the swell of his strong arms delectably well, despite having been tailored for Lestat’s own, strong but slightly more slender frame. 

There was also something unabashedly endearing about seeing Louis in his clothes. That he might wish to be close to him even when apart. Or to imitate him and his taste. 

It was almost enough to shift his perspective. Almost.

“No, take it off.” Lestat barked, and for a second it seemed as though he was back to his old, bitchy self. “You’ll have no need for it.” A smirk broke the facade. " _I_ will keep you warm, if you would only come closer.”

He reached to absently fiddle with Louis’ shirt, playing with the drawstring lace at the collar. Louis had begun unbuttoning the coat already when he sat down, but stopped midway when Lestat decided to put his hands all over him. He sufficed to rest his hands elsewhere: one on Lestat’s knee, the other on his shoulder, thumbing a lock of his golden hair.

As an afterthought, Louis added, “I would say you could steal something of mine as payment, but I cannot say I blame you if you decide against it. Of course…” Louis’ confidence did not waver, but a blush creeped to his cheeks, “...you already have my heart.”

Lestat raised an eyebrow. “Anything? _Well_ that is quite a tempting bargain. What do I wish to steal from you, Louis…”

He rolled his eyes up, as if pondering. “Hmmm. If I could steal anything from you… I could steal your attention...”

“Impossible,” said Louis, playfully.”-My attention is locked up tight.”

Lestat’s impish smile widened. “Or shall I _take_ your breath away? Snatch your sighs and moans and sweet nothings greedily from your parted lips like a thief in the dark.”

“You gave me the breath of life and now you long to take it away? For shame!”

Lestat moved closer, tucking his legs up to curl underneath him. His voice growing quieter. “Shall I steal your very hours? Your nights? Your dreams, to be my plaything?”

“You talk as if it were _I_ who had stolen your dreams. Perhaps it is _you_ who are the plaything…”

“Mm...”

Reaching up, Lestat caressed Louis’ cheek with a long, elegant finger. He narrowed his eyes. This wordplay exhausted him so; he was eager to be rid of it.

“No...I have it. I think I should like to steal the most precious thing of all.”

He cocked an eyebrow, like Oedipus solving the Sphinx’s riddle. 

“I would like to steal a kiss. What say you to that bargain?”

With Lestat’s tempered, seductive voice, Louis was pulled into eyes burning with an innocent, wild desire. He did not deny that his heart yearned to feel those lips upon his own.

“You long for my kiss more than my dreams? My body?” Louis had lowered his voice to match Lestat. “If I had known how precious my kisses were, perhaps I would not deny you them so much. After all, how can you ever expect me to give you what you want, if you do not ask?”

For all the merits of Louis’ exemplary wordplay, his idle banter fell on long-deaf ears, for the moment they were close enough to exchange breath, Lestat lost every appetite for speech.

As the space between them grew ever smaller, he thought to curse his heighted vampire senses, as the very _smell_ of Louis—like candle smoke and old books and smooth, bitter chocolate—threatened to overpower him. It was intoxicating, the way it seemed to set his very nerves on fire, every inch of his body seemed to crackle with an untamed electricity.

Louis traced his warm fingers along Lestat’s collarbone, up his neck. When Louis brushed his jaw, Lestat leaned into his hand. His index finger played with Lestat’s lower lip, and Lestat exhaled a shuddering breath.

 _Oh, he must be burning up from the inside out,_ Louis thought. He hummed, “Well, after all that’s happened, it can only be fair.”

He held Lestat’s cheek in his hand and moved his lips closer to his lover’s. But just before he closed the gap, he stopped and withdrew himself, just far enough to see Lestat’s reaction. His face broke into a devious smirk that _I am in charge, now._

Lestat could have actually _sobbed_.

Every touch Louis had given him, was bestowed upon him so cruelly and slowly, as though he knew each caress was like a precious gift, as powerful as one thousand natural shocks. Everywhere his gentle, yet firm hand went left Lestat with a warm, buzzing feeling that trickled down his spine and settled somewhere deep in his belly.

Even through the filter of his slowly vanishing pride, he barely managed to conceal a faint, choked little cry, his eyes squeezing shut for just a moment.

It was difficult to even look at Louis. Lestat knew that to lose himself in those large, warm eyes would be to bare his very soul. If Louis were to look him in the eye, he would _know_ him, all of him. For now he had not the strength to conceal the overwhelming love and adoration and worship that resided there.

Lestat could not bear to be stripped so naked. 

How could Louis ever respect him again, were he to see how Lestat’s gaze brimmed with emotion unbidden, unspoken, and unwanted, at something as simple as a touch?

Nothing mattered to Lestat now. Not reputation, not propriety, not the dynamics of power nor the very laws of reason.

In this moment, in this place between misery and exquisite pleasure, all hung in the balance, Lestat’s mind was rendered no more than a wispy, clouded vessel with which to ponder his attractions. His eyes had no purpose but to feast on the perfect bow of his lover’s tender lip, the carved ivory of his bone structure a monolith in his mind. 

His hands came up to touch Louis’ face, very nearly tempted to simply pull him back forcibly, anything to pull him closer.

When Lestat spoke, his own voice sounded so husky and desperate it surprised him. 

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare do this to me.”

Louis gave him a look one would give a misbehaving child. “Oh ye of little faith!” he said, and then, before Lestat could say another word, Louis was kissing him.

It was as though Lestat found immediately that his mouth, no longer crafted for the art of speech or the thrill of the kill, had but one and natural true purpose; to reap a thousand gasps and pleasured sighs from the man who held him in his arms.

It was like every part of him demanded to be close to Louis as possible at once. 

Lestat’s very life’s intentions were tossed haphazard to the wayside—his only objective now to have more, more of this, more of this attention, more of Louis, on him, around him, _inside him._ More, more, more. He could never be satisfied. 

He needed it hot and heavy and fast and _right now, right this moment, right now._

A tiny moan fluttered up from inside Louis as their deprived, greedy lips finally met. His arm snaking around Lestat’s waist and pulling him close until their chests were pressed against one another. He could feel the near-desperate palpitations of his heart, paired with Lestat’s own pulse. The seconds, if time still indeed continued, felt like eternities, as they always had when Louis kissed Lestat.

He began to see stars in the corners of his closed eyes, feeling his rational mind slip away; suddenly he wanted to open his mouth, rip Lestat’s lips and tongue to shreds, allow Lestat the same indulgence. He wanted to taste their blood, mingling, coating their lips like rouge. He wanted it to spill and drip down their hands and heaving chests, begging to be lapped up in a possessive show of desire. They could do it right now. He and Lestat could pull off cravats and tear the buttons from the rest and have their ways with each other on that very bench.

Louis wanted all this and more as he continued to hold Lestat close to him, occasionally caressing his back, combing his fingers through his curls. He knew Lestat wanted it too. Already, within seconds, Lestat’s hands had come up, palms flat and fingers spread, to explore the rich expanse of Louis’ broad chest, one of Lestat’s legs moving up slyly to put his knee at the juncture of Louis’ hip, shifting in the salacious hope to straddle him. At this, Louis decided not to let Lestat think that he could get away with just anything. So, before any mouths could open, before any hands could wander further, Louis pulled away.

The elder vampire was left immediately with a sense of burning, painful emptiness as his lover slipped from his eager grasp. SO far had he leaned himself on the study weight on Louis' body that he actually had to brace himself on the armrest of the bench in his absence. 

“That was one of my more precious kisses, Lestat,” Louis said, standing up. He resumed unbuttoning the coat. “A kiss that is all yours now.”

Lestat remained frozen, his mouth hung agape, his hair tousled as he looked up at Louis desperately, with a gaze so gentle and genuine in confusion, it was as though Louis had kicked his loyal spaniel.

Louis folded the coat carefully over his forearm and looked to him, humming contentedly. “If that is all you will ask of me, I suppose I had better put this away.” He began to walk away from Lestat. “Is the wardrobe in our bedroom sufficient?”

Moment by moment, Lestat’s expression changed into something of such absolute horror and dismay that could be rivaled only by a child who had firsthand witnessed the murder of Father Christmas. 

For a second he actually had to blink to regain his comprehension. The very _nerve_ of Louis, to change the mood so soundly.

“But, if you still desire something from me,” Louis continued, “I’m afraid you cannot steal anything more. It is only fair, of course,” he said as he continued towards the bedroom. “But that does not mean you can get _nothing_ else from me…”

He stopped dead in his tracks, turning his head just enough to show his profile. “You will find, Lestat, that I may very well give you everything, the _moment_ you ask for it—”

“—Fuck me.”

No poetry. No riddles. No elaborate metaphors.

His eyes and Louis’ finally met and he stared into them _directly_ . Like a challenge. Like a _dare_. His expression was unreadable, outside intense, fitful passion, and dead seriousness. 

“Fuck me. Right now. _Baise moi, maintenant_.”

Lestat’s exclamation came as a surprise to Louis, enough to force an audible intake of air through his teeth, he could have sworn a jolt of electricity thundered through his whole body, making his toes curl and his head feel light. 

He had done it. After all these years Louis had finally seen through the sheath of humor and sarcasm in Lestat’s eyes. And what he saw was the tenderest affection, the deepest love. Louis would have studied Lestat’s face for ever if he were not so intensely aroused. He had successfully broken Lestat down. The only thing he had left was to beg. _Beg, Lestat, beg more!_

This was the Lestat Louis wanted. This beautiful, raw, open mess of a vampire, full of passion for life and love. This was the Lestat Louis wanted to savor. He observed Lestat still sitting where he had left him. His gaze pierced hungrily into Louis’ soul, like a rabid dog freed from the muzzle. Was he shaking as he sat there, or was he himself the one who had been trembling?

Would Louis grant Lestat’s wish?

Oh, _yes_.

But he had better be careful, he thought, if Lestat were to start making a habit out of this.

Lestat, who never asked, and only demanded, surrendering this choice to Louis. Was this the beginnings of trust? This elated him even more. He turned to face Lestat head-on, finally exhaling. But the sound that escaped him was deep within his throat, a growl that betrayed his burning lust.

Louis was about to say _you didn’t_ **_ask_** _,_ wondering what it would be like to hear Lestat say ‘please’, but he decided not to push it. This was the most honest request he had ever heard from Lestat so far. He wouldn’t mind living with a vampire who was always as uncomplicated in his desires as Lestat was now. He wondered if, behind the feral look in Louis’ _own_ eyes, Lestat would be able to see the love that burned there eternally, like a candle dancing in the fierce wind, refusing to die.

“Lestat…” Louis rasped, taking a few steps over to him. Lestat scrambled to his feet. A playful, evil grin spread across Louis’ face. “A whole week without hearing your sighs, watching you in ecstasies… I think I _was_ going mad.”

When he reached Lestat, Louis carefully tossed the folded coat onto the bench, slipped his hand onto the small of Lestat’s back and pulled him less-than-gently against him.”On two conditions,” he continued, holding up two fingers on his other hand. He leaned in and put his lips to Lestat’s ear. Perhaps to personally indulge, he pressed his cheek against Lestat’s. Any opportunity to touch Lestat, he would take.

“Not on this bench…” he whispered in one ear. And as he shifted to whisper into the other he pressed a momentary kiss to Lestat’s lips. “Because, yes, I will give you what you desire. But if I am going to _fuck_ you—” at that word he had tightened his grip for a moment “—I am going to take my _sweet_ time with it.”

Louis then spun around without saying another word, keeping his hand on Lestat’s back, and lead him to their bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ma fille - "My child"  
> Mon Dieu - "My God"  
> mon ange - "my angel"  
> mon petit chou - a common term of endearment meaning "my little cabbage" or "creampuff"  
> Bien sûr - "Of course"  
> ma parfaite petite princesse - "my perfect little princess"  
> Mon reine amour - "My princess love"  
> ma chérie - "darling"  
> Pauvre batard - "Poor bastard"  
> Baise moi, maintenant - "Fuck me, right now"  
> \---------------  
> Thank you so much for reading! If you don't want smut, you may stop here :) The next chapter is just a bonus. An epilogue of sorts. It will be up as soon as we finish editing it.  
> 


	3. Revelation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis and Lestat finally, finally fuck after all the previous nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOTS of French in this one. The boys are lost in the sauce and they forget how to speak English. Glossary is, as always, at the end of the chapter.

Lestat liked to stay away from such archaic, dusty concepts like 'older and wiser'. He'd had his mistakes, his lessons, sometimes learned twice, thrice, many times over, but it took a certain depressing seriousness to acknowledge that he was not actually the man he once was, and it was an emotional process he did not like to undergo.

His reasoning was this: To see growth in himself was to admit that he had been anything less than ideal earlier on, and to do _that_ incited pain and grief, so for the most part, by acknowledging the people he'd loved and lost, the people he'd harmed, and by the time he was that far gone, there would be no other choice but to sit and be miserable, and mope and mourn his mental youth, and have an all-out terrible time of it.... so really the best thing to do was to avoid such recollections altogether. 

Everything he knew, he had always known. Everything he was, he had always been. It was simpler to think that way; it kept one from becoming lost in the eons. 

But sometimes there were just some things that could not be overlooked. 

Occasionally, life in her infinite mysteries and tribulations forced Lestat, the immortal malingerer, to sit down for a damn moment and reflect. 

When incontestable truths he had sworn by and allowed to rule his life turned out to be falsehoods. 

Whenever it was announced by modern scientific consensus that 'humors' were not a thing, and 'germs' were, for example. That had been one of those times. You really can't argue with that. You can't claim that you knew that when you didn't. You just had to suck it up and admit you were wrong, and that you were as much of an idiot as anyone else. 

Parenting had been another. As a brash young lad he'd seen fat, elderly matrons with their squawking babes, beer bellied, grumpy old farm hands with grizzled faces and tired eyes, and sworn three times over he'd never be like them. Throughout his youth he'd been disgusted by children, all that mess they carried with them, the sniveling and whimpering and sticky little fingers getting everywhere.

And yet, in the other room at this very moment, a child for which he would hang the moon, lay dozing.

But closest to his roguish heart had been his faith in serial romance. 

To one end, there was of course the time-honored tradition of his father, and his father before him, and likely every other piece of shit aristocratic patriarch since before recorded time. Ritual infidelity was the mark of a seasoned gentleman. Whatever the gender of your predilections, as long as your intentions were thoroughly impure, you were assured to be of good breeding. There was never a man so ridiculed as the poor sap in love with his own wife. 

A pastime with many names. The tryst. The rendezvous. The roll in the hay. 

For longer than he could count, Lestat had been it's poster child. It gave him a sense of pride to claim his lovers. In hallowed halls or bawdy houses, he made his mark about whatever terrain he crossed—was thrice convinced and secure in the notion that he would never be tied down. The world was his oyster, and oysters are an aphrodisiac. Whatever his desire, he could find someone to fill it. Not only his need for flesh, but for companionship.

To a thousand women, with their skirts at their chest, he had whispered his unending devotion. 

To a thousand men, their breeches at their ankles, he had purred his undying loyalty. 

And worst of all was that he had probably meant it. 

For that was the second, and most notable allure of his lifestyle. Not only his addiction to the body, but to the soul. 

He found so many people so fascinating. He was pretty enough for any man or woman in any land and to him, love was as varied and duplicitous as a garden to peruse, exotic as Eden, a menagerie of blossoms to entice and enjoy the scent at leisure. 

It was supposed to be man’s nature, to be as the hummingbird, flitting from blossom to blossom. To be the lone wolf, siring pups across the forest, then skulking onwards in shadow. 

Only, this hummingbird, so quick and sure in flight, was so easily caught in one exotic, fragrant bloom. Ultimately this had always been his downfall. Drunk on the nectar of devotion. Like the moth to the flame, the fly to the flytrap. 

Just as he nipped, the petals would close, and leave him wanting.   
Just as the most beautiful flowers took root, they were clipped before their time. Like the rose, that opens in May, then shrivels as early as late July. Plucked from the stem and trampled. 

The thorns would prick you if you held too tight.

He had been burned before. A choice of words most thoughtfully selected. 

So who could blame him for closing the garden gate? To only take up flowers in passing. Breathe the sweet scent and venture on. 

This he swore, had claimed it to his heart as a golden truth. 

And yet here he was, looking at Louis De Pointe Du Lac, wondering in a split second if he could spend his life with him. 

It was all so painfully clear.

He hadn't expected someone to feel...like home.

Not for a long time anyhow.

But now, in this moment, who could it be but this man; who made him keen and pant and whine with a _word_ in his ear? Who else could make his knees threaten to buckle with a _whisper?_ Who could make his head spin, his heart ache, his breath catch, his vision blur, with the sound of his voice?

No, he had been a fool. He had changed. He was ready to try love again, to be hurt again, one million times.

Louis could feel Lestat’s eyes burning into him as he walked across the house. He knew that if he looked back into Lestat’s eyes he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from smiling. He did it anyway. 

He leaned in to kiss the side of Lestat’s head before turning to push the bedroom door closed.

If Lestat said something out loud—("Fuck, Louis, _please._ ") he was barely aware of it, barely conscious of his own words. 

Because now _Louis_ was leading him to the bed, _Louis_ ' firm hand was on his back—was he _pushing_ or was it Lestat's imagination? _Louis_ was laying him down on the soft, silky feather down pillows like a _queen,_ like royalty. 

He landed with a _floompf_ on the blankets, prone and flushed, with Louis, standing at the foot of the bed, framed between his knees. 

Lestat was quick to dispose of his own shirt, flinging it across the room as though it had dealt him some grievous injury. His stockings, his belt, both swiftly followed, soaring to land in a discarded heap he was sure to regret once he was in his right senses. 

And then as if in an instant, Lestat was splayed across the bedspread, a sparkling Adonis, hair spread like a mermaid on the sheets, his toned, svelte frame flickering in the candlelight. While Louis hadn’t even finished removing his shoes.

Only Lestat’s trousers remained, for the delight of having them torn off, no doubt—but at this point, they served little purpose to hide any obscenity. 

Lestat was _hard._

Unmistakably. Tented and uncomfortably restrained, though one hardly needed the visual, with the way he thrashed and fussed. 

He reached for Louis, pawing at his buttons and fastenings in such haste to have him bared before him. It was annoying at best, uncomfortable at worst.

The urge to tear his clothes to shreds like an animal was strong within him, but knowing Louis would only replace them with some foul drab thing of his own devising cooled his lustful folly. He found himself murmuring impatiently all the while, tugging at Louis' clothes.

"Off. Off. Off. _Vite. Plus rapide."_

“Sit up, Lestat, why don’t you, if you’re so keen on helping,” Louis snickered.

Whenever an impatient hand interrupted Louis’ own, Louis would grab it gently then push it back down, as one would treat a cat that liked to play with people’s noses, books, or cups of coffee. He kept his pace constant, neither slowing or speeding up, even as little whines and pants came with every rise and fall of Lestat’s chest. 

The poor thing was used to nothing else, Louis supposed. It was no secret that they both harbored a voracious appetite for each other. It was difficult to go slow when you both want the other _right now_. And so it went for many of their escapades; many times they did not even bother to strip down. Louis, fed up with Lestat, would simply bend him over the nearest piece of furniture or lift him up and pin him to a wall and that would be that. Here, Louis was not acting out of frustration, wanting to truly savor his time with him, and here Lestat was, still impatient, still greedy. Oh, Louis would have _fun_ with him.

He pressed his fingers to the middle of Lestat’s chest and applied some pressure, effectively telling Lestat to _stay down_. Lestat succumbed to this fate with a groan and let himself be pushed back, flopping miserably on the bedspread, arms above his head, legs splayed akimbo. Louis went to his shirt, untucking it from his trousers and pulling it over his head. Impatient as Lestat was, there was a small blessing, as from this position, he could savor every inch of Louis’ immaculate, ambrosian body in intimate detail.

When Louis’ head emerged once again he made sure to shake his hair a bit. Some of it fell in front of his eyes, which he remedied by running a hand across his scalp, silky black hair cascading around his shoulders as he deliberately looked down at Lestat with half-lidded eyes. 

Lestat gazed at his lover’s form hungrily, like a tiger in crouch. He could find no aspect that did not delight or entice him. Everything from the delicate tips of Louis’ fingers, the dark, raised veins of his wrist, up to the corded muscle of his arms. Despite his angular structure, he had been a strapping boy once, wading through Indigo fields, a gentleman of the land, and this past was not hidden in his stature. 

Lestat liked a well built man. Of course, he did not play favorites or exclude for want of this. Poor Nicholas had always been of more shallow and waifish stature, even when they were boys, and he had loved him still. But there was something thrilling in the kind of mate that could be rough with you, that had a streak of animal, bull-like build or at least the strength and a passion to match, to fold you up into a whirlwind. Not to mention being the kind of man you could wrestle with, playfully roll around, get into scraps, a little push and pull. Someone you didn’t have to be afraid to bite, to scratch—who wouldn’t tire too quickly or lose their hold. 

To be with one who could _take_ as well as he could _give_. A true pleasure. Someone you could be rough with, and who you could really trust to be rough with you.

That is if they ever _got to_ it. For god’s sake, how many buttons were there on a shirt anyway?

“Sometime this WEEK _, s'il vous plaît?”_ Lestat muttered irritably, watching Louis continue to make a languid three-act performance of his undress. 

Louis’ hair hung, smooth and mahogany, nearly to his mouth-watering pectorals, just above that flat, toned stomach that Lestat wanted to _lick_ a long stripe right up the center of. The sharp angular vee of his hip bones that Lestat could just, _ugh_ , just lap at and gnaw on like a wolf on a rawhide. 

Not even to MENTION that Lestat was convinced every pair of pants Louis had ever worn were a size too small. Maybe he had subconsciously bought them that way. Come to think of it, maybe he had _consciously_ bought them that way. Maybe he oughtn’t to have been trusted with the shopping if he had such ill intentions. 

_WHATEVER_ the reason at hand, Louis sported a large prominent outline against the front lining of his trousers, cast in even sharper relief by the shadow of the dim light, that made Lestat actually salivate. 

The idea that Lestat was mere moments from seeing and being filled by that thick, heavy cock- All the things he was itching to do. Take it in his hands, in his mouth. Hell, just to _see_ it again would be heaven. It had felt like centuries. _Why have you been hiding, old friend?_ Too bad he couldn’t get a look at _that_ spectacle and catch a glimpse of his fantastic ass at the same time. The unfairness of it all!

He could dally no further. This had to stop, it was cruel and unusual punishment to goad and mock him thus.

With one leg, Lestat hooked his ankle at the small of Louis’ back, attempting playfully to reel him in, anything to get him closer to himself.

But this blatant act of disobedience only seemed to further Louis’ stern hesitance.

“ _Je t’aime_ , Lestat, but if you keep that up I might be discouraged and I may stop.” Louis blew a stray strand of hair away from his face and, leaning in a little over Lestat, ran his hands over Lestat’s parted thighs until he suddenly gripped them tight--suppressing a groan when he felt the muscles tense under his fingers. He pulled, bringing Lestat’s whole body closer as Louis planted one knee onto the bed, furrowing his brow. “ _I_ don’t want to stop, _mon cher_ , do _you_ want me to stop?”

“ _No,_ fuck!” Lestat whined petulantly, tossing his head melodramatically this way and that on the pillows. “ _Homme sans cœur_! _Taquiner. Vous coureur de jupons!_ ”

Louis put his other knee up, both now tucked under Lestat’s legs, and leaned up to look over him. Taking one of Lestat’s hands, Louis kissed it, then showered more soft kisses on Lestat’s cheeks and jaw before allowing their lips to finally connect once more.

Lestat moaned into Louis’ mouth. His legs coming up to straddle possessively around Louis’ waist, one hand moving to claw at his broad back and shoulders, the other, entangled in his hair. 

The effect that Louis had on Lestat was awe-inspiring. Seeing him grow more and more impatient, desperate. Louis wondered if Lestat worried that he would not give him the bone-shattering railing he so deserved. After decades, Lestat still would not be denied anything he wanted, even for a moment. It was slightly disappointing.

“ _Mon amoureux. Mon sale chien._ ” Lestat was saying. “ _Ah! Baise-moi comme une pute commune! Mettez-le en moi, vous stupide bel homme.”_

Always with something to say. If Lestat was not gasping, he was moaning. For years, Louis had simply ignored it, resolving to shut Lestat up by grabbing his throat, shoving his fingers or something else in his mouth. But now he found himself laughing, and in the moments their lips broke away to catch their breath, he said, “ _Mon Dieu,_ what an awful way to speak to the man you love!”

Louis involuntarily bucked his hips against Lestat when he felt his fingernails dig into his back. The friction forced moans up from both of their lips and Louis heard his own trembling voice utter a small “ _merde._ ” Though he continued to refuse to fuck Lestat properly until he damn well felt like it, he wanted so fiercely to have the taste of him on his tongue. 

His fangs broke the skin of Lestat’s neck easily. Combing his hand through Lestat’s hair, he grabbed hold of it, softly pulling his head to the side. He had not targeted the jugular, no, Lestat would bleed too quickly, swoon, or maybe even come to climax before Louis could do that himself.

At one touch of his lover’s teeth, Lestat’s eyes snapped wide, pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks. “Ah- _hhah_.” His head lolled obediently, and he started to hear the resonant thud of his own heartbeat in his ears.

He was aware of Louis’ mouth on him, the feeling of tender yet dedicated suckling, pulling and drawing his blood out his very veins—even so little an amount—how strange a notion that truly was. 

As he thrashed, the muscles in his neck spasmed and contracted painfully under Louis’ mouth. _Good,_ Louis thought, _Lestat liked a little pain_. He lapped up the blood that came slowly from the wound, and bit again and again each time it began to heal. He now wished vampires could bruise; what he wouldn’t give to see marks of possession remain on their bodies for days and days.

Lestat’s hand remained tangled in Louis’ hair, trembling slightly. The colors and lights within his vision grew brighter, then fainter, with every pump of his heart. He felt as though he were sinking into the covers, Louis’ weight heavy and secure on top of him. 

Louis didn’t risk any more than two mouthfuls, and pulled off soon after, for both his and Lestat’s sakes. And When he finally lifted his noble head, Lestat felt a jolt of arousal surge through him as he saw his _own_ blood drip from Louis’ lips, falling in delicious rivulets down his chin.

His fledgling, his creation, this monster he had made, giving into his wants and needs like an animal, plagued with the unquenchable thirst that Lestat had given him. 

Somehow, to Lestat, that was incredibly hot. Far more so than any decency should have allowed. Good thing Lestat hadn’t any.

_“Je suis ta pute, Louis.”_

Louis smiled ingratiatingly, ever the gentlemen. “You may be a whore, _mon ange_ ,” He responded to Lestat’s vulgar demands. “You may even be _my_ whore. But you are not common, and I refuse to treat you as such anymore.” Louis’ hand moved to stroke a lock of blond hair out of Lestat’s face. It settled on his cheek, where his thumb caressed it. “I think you will _love_ the way I would fuck a courtesan.”

Louis’ words brought a whip-crack smile back to Lestat’s lips, a dare in his eye. He wriggled and squirmed, happily pinned underneath him. 

“Ha. You speak as if you know— _Ah!_ —anything about courtesans.” 

He interrupted himself with a moan when Louis made for a particularly sickening roll of his hips.

“How to take a woman and bridle her like a filly, the sounds only filth of the streets will make for you if you pay. The things I could teach you—!” He muttered before Louis dug his fangs into his own tongue and descended upon Lestat’s mouth like an angel of death. The hot, fresh blood that pumped through Louis in excess now dripped into Lestat’s hungry mouth. Something to satiate him while he waited.

Lestat keened and lapped eagerly at the stray drops, immediately desperate for every taste of that unholy nectar, that bewitching elixir that ruled his nights and made for sleepless days.

Thick and rich and sweet and savory all at once, sticky and intoxicating like some heady liquor, yet at the same time, invigorating and life-giving as water in the desert. 

He could swear he could taste himself on Louis’ lips, a thought that went directly to his cock. 

Deepening the kiss, Lestat found Louis’ tongue and _sucked_. His hands reaching to lace behind his head, drawing him closer. Unlike Louis, he was not as conscientious. He drank and drank, gasping and pressing light kisses to Louis’ lips to let the blood flow, then returning again to steal the next mouthful. He was insatiable, and by the end, he was a mess, his lips swollen and dripping, long clever tongue flicking out like a reptile to greedily lap up every stray drop. 

He looked Louis dead in the eyes as he swallowed his last mouthful, wanting to see what he looked like, watching his own life force disappear down Lestat’s throat. A self satisfied smirk spread across his face and he licked his lips, looking like the cat who had made off with the cream. He sighed and hummed contentedly, a little too long and a little too loudly to be simply enjoying the flavor.

“I’ve only seen you with a courtesan once.”

He panted. 

“You taste just as good as you did that night.” 

He ran his tongue along his bottom lip. 

“The night I claimed you as mine.” 

It was a risk, to bring up the past. Lestat knew this well, but here like this, in the candlelight, he couldn’t resist.

Louis shifted his weight slightly to the left. His right hand travelled down from Lestat’s neck. He dragged his fingernails down his chest and his stomach, delighting when he felt the muscles twitch from the tickling sensation he was giving them.

They slid beneath Lestat’s trousers and began to tease there what was so obviously begging to be teased. He rubbed his fingertips playfully against Lestat, still deliberately avoiding getting him off properly.

This only spurred Lestat onwards. Adrenaline rushing through him, he was fearless. Trying to see how far he would go, how much he dared. 

“So staggering drunk you could barely stand, some dry-dock whore with your cock in her mouth, and I knew I had to have you. I knew how— _Merde_!—how good you would taste— _Aah_!” 

He cut himself off again, unable to contain his gasps, his eyes squeezing shut with every wave of pleasure. Yet he would not be overcome, he would not let Louis linger here, to deny him the feeling of his lover inside him. 

“N-not only that, _mon_ _amour_. You know, I watched, while she sucked you off? I was there, in the dark. And I thought of how pretty _you_ would look with your perfect little mouth around _me_.” 

He bucked again and again into Louis’ hand, desperate for the delicious friction to continue. He growled in frustration. 

“You were irresistible. Wandering the streets at night, with your shirt all undone. It was almost like you wanted to be found.”

Louis listened to Lestat stammer and gasp and _try_ with a sadistic glee. He busied himself with planting kisses all over Lestat’s neck when he wasn’t whispering sweet nothings into his ear, and the unrhythmic strokes on Lestat’s cock that sent the recipient into waves of pleasure. _Slow. Fast. Slow. Fast._ If Lestat decided to say something a little too dirty, Louis would tighten his grip and watch as the offensive words melted into much more honest, appropriate, wordless sounds. Revenge for taking so greedily of the blood he had so generously given.

Lestat’s every gasp, sigh, pant, moan, and whimper belonged to _Louis’_ hands, _his_ lips and tongue and teeth. And with another sudden grind against him, Louis added his cock to the list as well. He was getting more and more hot from just watching Lestat’s face become the image of a saint in divine ecstasy every time Louis unexpectedly intensified his caresses. The sounds from Lestat, even when Louis’ eyes were closed, made him shudder and whisper his name as he bloodlessly nibbled the soft skin beneath Lestat’s jaw.

But Lestat would still try and goad him, and Louis admired this persistence. Going so low as to exaggerate certain pivotal memories that they both knew were not as glamorous or erotic as Lestat made them out to be.

Talking to Louis like that was usually an open invitation to ravage Lestat mercilessly. Louis also knew that he wouldn’t be able to control himself for much longer. He had gone too long without experiencing the orgasmic and irreplaceable sensation—to thrust in and out of Lestat in mounting rhythm until the man was left with his legs twitching, the sweat and tears rolling down his cheeks, and an angelic smile stuck on that perfect face _._ In all honesty, as he had been edging Lestat so cruelly, he had also been edging himself.

_Fine then, Lestat. I hope you are ready,_ Louis thought.

Lestat’s eyes fluttered wider, seemed to dart about with telepathic intuition. 

Louis still refused to let Lestat get the upper hand. “But now I know how _you_ taste, Lestat,” he growled, hastening his strokes slightly, “I can taste you anytime I desire.”

“How about you ‘taste’ _ma bite_?” Lestat snarked bitterly.

Louis kissed Lestat’s cheek twice, gently. _“C'est toi qui est irrésistible, mon trésor.”_ Faster. But not too fast. “I love to hear you cry for me. Don’t try and entice me; I couldn’t be more desperate to bury myself within you.

“But before I do, I think I want to see how close I can get you, see how many times you can say my name.” He was getting harder and harder the more he spoke. “Stop trying so hard.”

His hand wrapped around Lestat’s shaft and jerked it up and down.

Lestat groaned huskily as the sparse, deliberately tortuous uneven strokes intensified. 

_How had that not worked?_ This was unacceptable.

By all accounts Lestat should have been being skewered within an inch of his immortal life. He’s teased, he’d pulled, he’d pleaded and obeyed, demanded and rebelled. What more could a man do to get something in his ass around here? 

His mounting impatience reduced him to snarling fast, snappish retorts. "You seem to be doing a fine job of resisting me at the moment.”

The game of cat and mouse was beginning to lose its lustre, flirtatious playful foreplay giving way to something more sinister and intense—the feeling was no longer little sparks, but a flame. A bonfire was burned deep inside him now, one that could not be stamped out, extinguished, or controlled, a scorching inferno that destroyed all thoughts and inhibitions in his path.

Lestat’s eyes were closed again, his heightened senses becoming too infuriatingly overwhelming. Every time he chanced a glimpse and looked down, the sight of Louis and his large warm, _soft_ hand languidly stroking Lestat’s stiff, rigid member, it forced a moan out of him unbidden. Louis the Catholic, the soft-spoken Creole boy who quoted Mark and John, and loved to look at the stars—with his HAND on Lestat’s COCK. 

It was too obscene, too juxtaposed, so frightfully taboo, and _God_ did it just make him _throb_. It was agony. Lestat let out another little frustrated growl.

He did NOT want to come this way. It was too much yet not enough all at once. Deliciously satisfying, yet, he knew, a poor substitute for the rollicking he believed he so richly deserved. He thrashed and writhed and bucked like a racehorse into Louis’ diligent hand, but his countenance was etched in frustration, teeth clenched, brow furrowed. 

“Tch, _vous salope impitoyable.”_

Thankfully, this last backhanded remark, coupled with the way Lestat continued to cling to Louis by the neck, the shoulders, anywhere he could reach, seemed to spur Lestat ever-patient partner into action.

It was as if the sound of Lestat’s vulnerable, helpless voice did the same thing to Louis as Louis’ hand was doing to Lestat. He could not quell his rhythm any longer. Lestat’s tightening grip on him only motivated him further. Having known and loved Lestat for so long, he could tell just how close or how far away a climax was. He knew how Lestat’s moans differed depending on where and how he was being stimulated. He knew, by now, how to push the boundaries, and that is just what he did.

For minutes, seconds, hours—Louis lost track—he let Lestat’s sensations rise higher and higher. Names, curses, declarations were thrown into the air and hung above them. It was as if nothing and everything was happening at the same time.

Lestat moaned again, but he was far from satisfaction, as his breaths quickly shallowed in horror at the realization of Louis’ intentions.

His fingers tightened their grip at the nape of Louis' neck, his knuckles white, his face skyward, his eyes tightly shut. 

As much as Lestat wished he could resist, ached to feel Louis tear him apart, his body had a mind and craving of its own, chasing any kind of friction until he was essentially relentlessly fucking Louis’ fist. 

All the while, he swore like a gutter urchin; spitting and hissing filth one of his social standing never ought to have known. 

“ _Merde! Merde! Chatte! Enculer mon cul serré!”_

Higher, higher, almost, almost, almost—

Lestat could hear the warlike drumming of his heartbeat. He felt the tension rising in him, burning and twisting his insides like a white hot coil, poised to spring.

“ _Plus, plus vite, plus vite! Qu'est-ce que tu es un idiot? Essayez-vous de me tuer? branle-moi! Je le veux maintenant, j'en ai besoin! Ah! Ah! Sale salope!”_

He began to feel light headed, dizzy, as though he were falling-the penultimate feeling before the rush of climax. His whole body was ablaze, everything down to his fingertips seemed to buzz and tingle. 

He bucked even harder, his mouth hanging open as he panted, his tongue caught between his teeth in anguish. 

He sputtered more profanity, raking his fingernails down Louis back, his toes curling, his eyes toward the angels. 

Weightless, senseless, unable to resist. 

“ _Ah, Niquer moi! Niquer moi, ma beau homme! Je ne peux plus le supporter! Je vais éclater. Je vais mourir! C'est trop. Dieu au paradis. Plus! Plus! Plus! Allez! Aies pitié—Louis!”_

Louis took his hand away, slipping it up from underneath Lestat’s pants. He had stopped right before Lestat was pushed over the edge. 

Lestat cried his name with a shout that rang so sharp the candlelight seemed to flicker. Lestat’s whole body bowed and shuddered, rutting into Louis’ hand, but he was caught tight in his lover’s merciless grip, dangling on the precipice of his release. 

Evil incarnate. 

And even now Louis could sense his pleasure subsiding like a wave that never broke. “Beautiful, my love, _c'était parfait,_ ” he whispered, kissing Lestat’s face again. Louis was so giddy and so in love that he completely forgot his dominant persona for a moment. But for a moment only.

Now Lestat actually _did_ sob, a choked, broken pitiful sound. He thrust a few more times, helplessly, with a petulant little whine, but to no avail. 

“Why do you torture me so?!” 

Louis exhaled with a hum, a smile gracing his face. He looked down at the poor man he had tormented. During the excitement, Louis must have pushed down Lestat’s trousers; they hid nothing anymore. Louis pulled the garment completely off of Lestat’s legs. For a second, Louis wondered if he could tease Lestat just once more. He didn’t have to take the whole thing in his mouth. Just one stroke of his tongue would do. That’s all that he wanted.

But Louis reconsidered. He had promised Lestat. The anticipation would eat the both of them up like a flame if Louis was not careful. He slipped his thumb under his own trousers, inching them down a little lower. He wondered if Lestat would be desperate enough to rip them off himself.

He wanted to violate Lestat more than he had ever wanted to before. And he absolutely would, but not before one more opportunity to hear Lestat plead. He ran his hands up Lestat’s thighs, spreading them ever so slightly. “ _Merci pour votre patience._ Would you like me to give it to you now?”

_“God, stop it, stop it,”_ wailed Lestat, his voice ragged and shrill, releasing his hands and beating his fists against the mattress in agitation. 

“I cannot stand it. I want it, I want you, NOW.”

That was the ultimate word. ‘Now’. The word that transcended the world of maturity and reason, one that rendered Lestat’s devolution into the bratty, entitled, pampered little prince he truly was, stripped bare and complete. 

Louis had never seen Lestat so powerless. On other occasions, though his vocalizations fell on half-deaf ears, Louis would be giving Lestat what he wanted, anyway. He wondered if he was perhaps _too_ generous to allow Lestat to thrust so violently against his hand. But he supposed it could not have been helped.

“Enough!” Lestat snapped. “You are selfish to keep all the fun for yourself—”

Before the other could protest, he sat up to a kneeling position to mirror Louis’ and wasted no time taking what he was so hungry for. As he reached to cup a generous palm against Louis’ straining cock through his pants, his other hand moved to tear invasively, possessively, at his front buttons.

Louis decided that Lestat had done penance enough. His choked sob had been more than Louis could ever hope to see. Now he could shift into his design to treat Lestat like royalty.

Louis grabbed the wrist that fingered at his trousers and removed them himself, having to sit momentarily to slide them off his legs and feet. He leaned closer to Lestat, the two of them so close they were practically breathing the same air. The heat and humidity of Lestat’s exhalations gave Louis a dizzy numbness that filled him with pleasure. He mourned the scars he could have had from Lestat’s glassy fingernails tearing up his back.

_At last._ Lestat was bolstered by this sudden cooperation. Only a shame he had to lose all possible sense of control or dignity in order to reach this point. _But this was no time to grumble_.

They were both in a state of nature, now, and Louis could no longer have played aloof and unaffected, even if he wished it so, for now the living proof of his piqued interest hung between them, damp and heavy as their mingled breath.

Lestat was quick to take this proof in hand, a sensation unparalleled, and he relished his lover’s faint little gasp at the contact he had secretly craved.

For some time, Lestat simply toyed with Louis’ cock. Squeezing it gently, lightly drumming the tips of his fingernails up and down the shaft, thumbing at its head, playing with the rigid flesh between his fingers; genuinely marveling how it felt to handle such a fine-tined and sensitive instrument. Louis allowed Lestat to have his fun for a moment or two. He focused on his own endurance as he put his forehead to Lestat’s.

How Lestat longed to take it in his mouth, to wet it with his lips, sucking until they were raw and swollen, perhaps even scraping it ever-so-gently with his fangs just to hear his beloved howl. But he was doubtful that Louis would allow him even the luxury to suck him off, knowing full well what gratification it would give Lestat to do so. It was a gift to be able to touch him at all, he knew full well. It would be unwise to waste such trust.

_Oh, what was the saying,_ Lestat pondered, _a cock in the hand beat two in the mouth? Or… something._

_No, that couldn’t be right._

Lestat snapped out of it quickly. _Less thinking, more feeling_. _Right._

With a swift and skillful hand, he began to steadily indulge his paramour. Unlike his own experience, he was not anxious to draw out the event by any means, and was quick to racket up his speed for maximum efficiency, and reveling in the results of this labor.

Sliding one hand around to the back of Louis’ head, he pulled them closer to each other stroking his cheek with his thumb as he was finally, finally blessed to see the tables turn. Louis’ moans were more precious than gold, each one a priceless little gem to treasure in one’s memory. They came soft and feathery, light at first, but grew thick and lusty in his mounting anguish, growling from deep within in a way that made the little hairs on the back of Lestat’s neck stand up.

“Stupid— _unh!_ —shameless boy, do you— _mmh!_ —do you mean to drain me so—quickly?” Louis’ voice was steady, despite how unable he was to suppress the moans Lestat gave him. 

Then Louis composed himself again. He looked directly into Lestat’s bright, pale eyes as he wrenched both of his wrists from him and, pushing Lestat back down into the sheets, pinned them on either side of his head.

Lestat gave only a keening whine of pure delight. This was _just_ what he wanted, at the heart of it all. 

To be overpowered and taken, to be muzzled and bridled and forced to submit by a cold yet caring hand. 

He couldn’t hide a victorious fanged grin. And why should he? Pinned under a tall, dark, handsome man? This was his happy place.

He squirmed and fidgeted in this new arrangement, enjoying the feeling of Louis looming over him, but still wanton for the sweet attrition of his thrusts. 

“You’re a spoiled little brat,” Louis said in a low voice, “ _tu le sais_?”

Lestat could swear he felt the ground rip from under him. He moaned without so much as being touched. 

“ _Oui oui, je suis! Votre propre petit prince gâté._ _Vous petit homme dépravé et tordu! Cela vous excite, non?_ This _torture_ you inflict on me.” 

Louis gave Lestat a small kiss on his lips and chuckled. “Oh, torture, Lestat, I _do_ torture you!” Louis grabbed Lestat’s jaw, pinching his cheeks just enough to pout his lips. “Just as you torture me every waking hour!”

Lestat inhaled sharply—On the surface, he allowed himself to be ticked off, glaring daggers at Louis. On the inside, it sent his heart into a girlish flutter to be handled and spoken to in such a way. 

It was so demonstrably hot to hear Louis talk about his _wants_ and _needs_ , to hear him admit his lust and drop to Lestat’s level in his speech. 

That smile, that _look_. There was no doubt Louis was _changed_. No longer full of poise and wisdom in repose.

All Lestat’s provocation had paid off, as he now found himself at the mercy of a man who burned to see him punished. Louis had an air to him that was almost…dangerous. Unpredictable. He’d shuddered off his pitiful mortal coil for something truly _unnatural_ and _dark_. The last straw had snapped. Lestat had coaxed the beast from its lair, and now it hungered for the kill. 

“But,” Louis released Lestat’s face and began to drag his fingers along his neck, “just as you’ve reduced me countless times into a savage animal devoid of reason, you are now nothing but a desperate wreck who can only _beg_ for me.” As he said this, an evil smile spread across Louis’ face. The words that came out of his mouth were considered so filthy to him. So improper, common, unchristian. But Louis let them spill out of him like a geyser without conviction, he was practically bathing in the mirth this all brought him.

But first things first.

“Take me then! Why must you wait? _Je le jure_ —” Lestat snarled before Louis put his index and middle fingers into Lestat’s mouth. Lestat gagged at first, only at the shock of it, but wasted no time in sucking wantonly at the foreign digits, going so far as to move closer to pull them lecherously further into his mouth, eyes locked between them. 

The authoritative words seeped from Louis’ lips like molasses.

“Bite it.”

This only gave permission to the thought Lestat’s instincts had already suggested.

Without further provocation, Lestat chomped down on his fingers, tearing a long gash with his teeth as easily as if the skin were no more than tissue paper.

When he began to sup greedily from the open wound, Louis had to actually fight in a small struggle to wrench his hand back from the jaws of the man beneath him. Lestat whined when they were ripped from him. Without thinking, he hopefully chased the fingers with his tongue, mindlessly searching for one more sip, but Louis had other plans.

“ _Ne t'inquiète pas_ ,” Louis whispered, chuckling, “I will give them back.”

Lestat huffed and pouted moodily at being deprived so soon, even after the reassurance. The tear was deep; blood cascaded from the wound. But it would heal soon. Louis’ hand shot to his own cock and coated it head to base with the thick abundance that poured from his mutilated veins. He took care to be as gentle as he could, not wanting to impede his stamina. And he kept an eye on Lestat, whose impatient “help” he could most certainly do without.

When Louis was sufficiently drenched, the devilish glee overtook him again. “Does it always feel this good to torment your lover?” Lestat shivered when Louis painted his torso lazily in that syrupy red ichor, streaking lines of red that he prayed would be licked. Louis leaned over Lestat, whispered in his ear. “Because watching you so helpless and defeated is enough to make me come _right now._ ”

Louis' hands then flew down to Lestat’s hips. He lifted them onto his lap with a rough tug. He kept an arm tucked around Lestat’s waist to steady him as he leaned in again. He wanted to watch as Lestat felt him press into him. Oh, what a sight that could be! “But I think I want to come… _inside_ you.”

Lestat only groaned, his brow lined with anguish and agitation, but the groan turned into a sharp, high gasp when he felt something tease at his entrance. He tensed instinctually, then immediately started struggling against his restraints again, trying in vain to push back against this new and welcome presence.

“Hnng, fuck. _S'il vous plaît,_ please God _, je ne peux pas le prendre!_ ” Lestat babbled incoherently, an illiterate mishmosh of French and English. “I can’t— _J'en ai vraiment besoin. Mettez votre putain de_ cock _en moi jusqu'à ce que vous soyez à vos couilles.”_ he painted and slurred with indescribable need. 

No sooner had he spoken then he lost all cause for words as Louis finally, _finally_ , sank his cock into Lestat.

It slid in so smoothly, and Louis felt the immediate pressure envelope him like a torniquete. His eyesight blurred and he groaned long and loud. His hips twitched, itching, longing to pound deep and fast into Lestat, but he knew, as all sodomites and deviants knew, that this would result in nothing but pain, sometimes for both parties. He must wait for Lestat, allow him to relax. 

Lestat did _not_ moan, the feeling almost too intense even for that.

Instead he threw his head back and exhaled in a long, debauched, utterly whorish sigh of ultimate satisfaction. It stuttered into shorter gasps (“Ah-ahh”) as Louis pushed further inside him.

Lestat’s shoulders rolled, his back arched like a cat, his hips stuttered, and his fingers flexed wide and trembling. It did hurt, but it was a warm, burning, _full_ kind of hurt. The feeling of being packed to his absolute limit. As though he had been empty all this time and only now was truly whole.

Louis was like a madman now, his mind frenzying, now that _he_ was the one who had to be patient. But it was a different madness, different from the one that overcame him so many times before. This passion was not of anger, but of something that was nothing short of _Agape_. He would give Lestat the moon if he could reach it, he would give him every praise he could utter, his own thundering heart if it was the last thing he did.

Lestat’s pale, unnatural eyes rolled skyward as he _groaned_ , disgusting and shameless. He smirked. “ _Ooh_ , you feel like heaven, _mon amour!_ ” 

Louis kissed Lestat and was matched with a fierce passion. Somehow, something as small as a kiss felt one hundred times more intimate now that they were joined. Their bodies intertwined, slotted perfectly like a lock and key. Every sound they both made as if it were a chorus of angels. “Oh, Lestat, Lestat!” Louis cried as he gasped for air. “So—tight…” Another shuddering breath. “ _Dîtes-moi… dîtes-moi quand…_ ”

Lestat took the time to savor this moment. Committing every last sensation, the glistening of his sweat, the scent of blood and the feeling of Louis’ hot ragged breath. Most of all the sensation, the girth and length of Louis’ heavy, solid cock. He preserved it all, saving it for a time when he might again be denied. 

This was the first time in a long time Louis and Lestat had gone this slow. Of course they had made love passionately before, when Lestat had his rare moments of tranquility. Louis could imagine that a man with all his vivacity would sink into lulls from time to time. The alternative: never any rest from such mania, sounded exhausting. Sometimes Lestat would sink lower, into days, even weeks of melancholia where he was quieter, where he isolated himself, where sometimes he would stare at nothing. Though Louis was endlessly frustrated by Lestat’s usual personality, these episodes evoked feelings of dread and fear, and to his horror, he learned he could not vanquish them by any means.

Louis would sometimes try to revitalize him. And Lestat, no matter his current state, would be dependably receptive. But there was an absence of mouthiness that, despite allowing Louis to go at his own pace, made him seem like he was farther away. It worried Louis, and he would ask Lestat if he had ever forced him. The reassurance was rarely a comfort.

But Lestat had not experienced such valleys for many years now. Either he had learned to bring himself up by himself in time, or was becoming more adept at hiding it. Louis doubted the latter. Lestat could not fit his big heart anywhere but proudly on his sleeve. Louis worried if that was wishful thinking.

In any case, Louis had almost forgotten the feeling that overwhelmed his every sense, when he was allowed time to feel it, when he took Lestat into his arms. It was electric, intoxicating, indescribable. It was entirely separate from physical arousal. He felt it when he fed, as well. This feeling that made whoever he was with a thousand times more beautiful, made him want to hold them and never let go.

If Louis had been rushed, they would long be finished with each other by now. The feeling would not have had time nor the encouragement to take total effect. He graciously allowed it now.

Slowly, Lestat let his eyes drift back to Louis with a dreamy, almost comically blissful expression. “Mmmmm. Maybe we can just stay like this for a little while…” He shut his eyes with a smirk, pretending to drift off. “Just like this, right where you are.” 

Louis jokingly rolled his eyes.

Lestat bit his lip, grinning. “No? Mmmm, very well…Carry on.”

If he had not been blinded by his passion, Louis would have been embittered by Lestat’s innocent teasing. Now, Louis, against all his convictions, felt more amused than ever.

Lestat promptly stuck his tongue out at Louis. “ _Baise-moi jusqu'à ce que tu jouisses._ You brute. Your _prince_ demands it so.”

Louis nuzzled Lestat’s nose as he spoke.

“ _Demand?_ ” Louis scoffed. “No need for all that fuss, darling. Do you not trust that I take immense pleasure in spoiling you rotten?” He added, “Well, when you have behaved yourself, of course,” with a kiss.

Lestat hoisted his knees up to wrap his legs around Louis’ hips, gasping at the change in angle. Every movement, every gesture, was amplified tenfold while locked in their intimate embrace, so much that even something as small as a slight adjustment sent shivers of pleasure rippling up and down his body. 

Meanwhile Louis’ strong, supportive arm underneath him grounded him, and made him feel secure and well cared for.

“What _ever_ are you talking about?”

Now settled again, he shimmied a little further into the sheets and batted his long eyelashes coquettishly.

“ _Je suis un parfait petit ang_ e. _Comment osez-vous._ ” He melted into another kiss happily. 

The arm that wrapped around Lestat’s waist pressed their bodies closer. So tight that Louis could feel Lestat’s ribs dig into his own with every breath. With his other hand he released his grip on Lestat’s wrist, opting instead to lace their fingers together. 

“All right,” Louis whispered. “As you wish.”

Louis thrust his hips slowly, not so much for Lestat but to get himself accustomed to the intense, engulfed sensation. Lestat shuddered and he buried his face in Lestat’s neck. It gave Lestat no end of joy to hear Louis swear and pant.

“Fuck…” Louis hissed. He felt himself claw his hand, digging his fingernails into Lestat’s back. Lestat chuckled at Louis’ impetuous eagerness, holding Louis close to him and carding his fingernails lovingly through his hair.

“Fuck!” Louis cried a little louder when the smooth friction from his second thrust sent a current up his spine that tensed every muscle in his body. The smell of blood coated Lestat’s hair. It stained their sheets in little splatters where they had been careless. He could smell the blood in Lestat’s and his own sweat. Lestat’s neck was slick with it. 

Louis put his mouth there and sucked, lapping up the gratuitous ambrosia, his teeth blessedly far away from the skin. He increased his speed and force little by little, growing ever more delirious with pleasure, until his thrusts became rhythmic. 

Lestat hummed contentedly with approval. “Oh, my beloved little saint. _Mon chéri, innocent garçon._ ” He moaned again happily, his face the very picture of hedonistic bliss. 

The overwhelming sense of frantic love coursed through Louis like opium. It made him think irrationally. He would marry Lestat if he could, perhaps they already were. He wanted to get closer, closer, so close that they melted into one body, more connected than how they were now. Lestat’s body jolted up and down from Louis’ every stroke.

“Oh, Lestat,” Louis heard himself say, “ _je te donnerai tout ce que ton cœur désire!”_ He moaned and sighed as he kissed Lestat’s cheeks, neck, jaw, lips. “ _Donnez-moi vos souhaits et je les exaucerai, mon chérie! Je t’adore, je t’adore!”_

Louis’ string of loving devotionals, spilling out like whispered prayers, made Lestat laugh, but it was a playful one, without a trace of mocking or contempt. 

Moving down a little further, he locked his ankles at Louis’ lower back, pulling him closer, deeper inside him. 

“Unnh— _Ta bite se sent tellement bien en moi._ ” He spoke low, hushed and intimate in Louis’ ear. “I like you here, where you _belong_. Between my legs, _mon précieux,_ in my bed. Your _rightful_ place.”

Then, as if he’d taken a blow to the head, out of nowhere, watching Louis pant and swear and thrust, Lestat found himself quite suddenly overcome with an overwhelming wave of affection and _gratitude_ for Louis. 

This man who labored tirelessly for Lestat’s pleasure, who gave himself so freely and unconditionally at his every whim. Who paid for the house and lavished him with all the money he could wish for. It all seemed to come crashing down like a ton of bricks, and Lestat was left shaken this jarring, acute affliction of the heart. 

As Lestat clutched Louis all the closer in his arms, powerful, rhythmic thrusts rocking him to his very core, he considered, as if for the first time, how truly alone they were in the great world. They were truly all the other had for _amicable_ company. Their fates poetically intertwined, twin flames, burning for all eternity. Two bodies with one celestial soul. 

In their time together, Louis had become Lestat’s other half. His foil, his sense of balance. Louis was a rock in times of struggle or fear, the calm sea in times of turmoil, a safe place to come home to. How lost and abandoned Lestat would feel without his gentle, wise, _patient_ Louis? Dear, dear Louis! How could he ever have been cruel to him, or treated him poorly?

In this brief, fragile moment of lust-induced delirium, Lestat swore to himself to never, ever, be mean to his beloved again. He had difficulty remembering why he could ever disagree with the man in the first place. As he felt every thrust plow into him, felt Louis’ pressing fingernails on his back, his kisses dotting his flesh like one thousand blessings, every fault and flaw between them seemed to evaporate into thin air, their every disagreement and fight, even those that came to blows, disappearing from the etchings of recorded time.

Louis was perfect in every way, a divine form on earth, far beyond what Lestat could ever truly deserve. How handsome he was! How noble and considerate and humble. How diligent and selfless and kind in every aspect. Louis never spoke harshly to him when he took other lovers, never chided him for his passions, nor neglected his every passing fancy. And yet he, Lestat, had berated him and become his personal nuisance! 

Where moments before he had lamented Louis as a torturer, now awash in a sea of decadent pleasure, he kissed his hair frantically and fawned over him with all the guilt and reverence of a penitent. 

Meanwhile, through this bout of lust-driven introspection, seeing the pleasure he was giving Lestat ignited Louis further. He was not close to completion, but it was nonetheless dizzying. “ _Mon cœur! Mon Lestat, je t’aime si follement!”_

It was embarrassing, how easily Louis slipped into such naked praise for Lestat. He had heard it when he said it. He braced himself for more mockery, but it never came.

Instead, Lestat reached up to cup Louis’ face affectionately in his hand. Tender, affectionate. Stroking his cheek and cooing sweet nothings gently to calm and center him as he swore and fussed, kissing his forehead, his nose, any and all that he could reach.

“Oh, my own Louis,” he lulled, “ _Mon bel homme grand, fort et travailleur. Roi de mon coeur. Tu ne sais pas que mon amour ne brûle que pour toi? Je veux seulement ton contact, tes gémissements, tes baisers. Votre plaisir est mon plaisir.”_

The shift in demeanor shocked Louis out of his rhythm. His movements shallowed as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. He couldn’t believe it; it went against all he knew about Lestat. It certainly could not have been anything _Louis_ had done. He stared at Lestat’s face for a moment, trying to find some reason in the eyes of a man that had called him a ruthless bitch just minutes before.

Then Louis realized: he couldn’t care less. Whether Lestat’s passion was a stroke of madness or divine intervention, Louis let that all melt away. His mind was too full of other things to bother. He returned Lestat’s affections wholeheartedly, and his pace quickened.

Amid his hitched, shallow breaths, Louis felt a slight tug on his scalp; Lestat’s fist was clenched in his disheveled, wayward hair. Whether Lestat was aware of how this affected him, Louis did not know, but the painful, pleasurable sensation awakened his dominant prowess once again, adding itself to the already-overpowering Eros in his heart.

The mischievous glimmer returned to Lestat’s steely eyes. “Tell me how much you want me. How I entice you. Tell me, _show me_ how much you ached for me.” 

“Mm, I want you every day of my _life_ ,” Louis growled with a powerful thrust of his hips at the last word. “I thought you would know that by now, my love?”

Louis grinned as he continued. “Well, I suppose it would be difficult to remember during a week of silence, no?”

“Did you feel _terrible_?” said Lestat, “ _Vous vous êtes branlé et avez pensé à moi? Pécheur, avez-vous des rêves dégoûtants?”_

Louis decided to pound harder, deeper into Lestat, perhaps try to cut Lestat’s sentences into bite-sized pieces with the shudders such stimulation could give. “Terrible? Oh, _not at all._ Seeing you so _deprived_ gave me satisfaction _enough_.” His deep, forceful thrusts acted to emphasize every sentence uttered.

Lestat lowered his voice to a whisper, his breath brushing Louis’ ear, his grip tightening like claws at the base of his neck.

“ _Chaque jour tu étais absent je me touchais, et viens avec ton nom sur mes lèvres.”_

Louis gasped. “ _Vilain garçon_ ...” his words dripped with honeyed fervor. Louis’ hand flew to Lestat’s right hand, gripping his wrist once again. He brought the hand up to the side of his own head and looked at it. “Once again, I meet my rival,” Louis huffed. He looked back down at Lestat. “Fortunately, you always seem to try _me_ first.”

Lestat giggled like some giddy teenager. “You’re right, _mon cher_ , a curse on this naughty hand.” He shuddered with another wrack of pleasure and looked at Louis with heavy lidded eyes. “Your God willing, may I never have need of it again.”

Louis released the wrist with a victorious chuckle and brought his lips to Lestat’s ear. “ _Desperate,_ ” he whispered, forcing himself into Lestat once more.

Lestat’s bucking hips matched Louis’ diligently in intensity, their minds and bodies so in tune that they maintained an identical focus, one goal and one truth. 

Louis grunted with every stroke, and with Lestat’s every sound he moaned in tandem. One arm snaked under Lestat’s arm, up to cradle the back of his neck, anchoring him enough so Louis could increase the friction of his vigorous pulsations. His other hand dug unto the sheets above Lestat’s head. Louis was now going from breath to breath, unaware of time and the rest of the world. His only purpose was to _give_ and _give_ and _give_.

Louis felt his senses intensify. He was getting close now. He looked down at Lestat and gauged his behavior briefly. He was coming ever closer as well, but slower. Momentary fear jolted through Louis; at this rate, Lestat would have to be finished off in another way.

No.

_No._

Lestat was going to come first if it was the last thing Louis did. He would _not_ be an afterthought; he would _not_ be put in second place. After all Louis had put him through, Lestat deserved the caresses of a thousand multitudes, a glimpse into heaven itself. Something that would be burnt into his memory for eternity. He deserved to come first, or at least, at the same time as Louis.

And now, seized with violent conviction, Louis focused his attention on speeding Lestat along. “You like to say my name when you come, hmm?” Louis purred. “I do hope you will _scream_ it tonight.”

Lestat groaned a fervent assent. “Oh, _Louis."_ He moaned, obediently. His voice thick as caramel. He stroked Louis’ hair gently, even as he racketed up his pounding another mind-blowing notch. 

With his hand, Louis reached down to Lestat’s much-neglected cock.

“ _L-Louis_.” Lestat stammered huskily, a surge of satisfaction coursing through him as though his whole body had been lowered into hot water.

With his teeth, Louis opened up his bottom lip and pressed his mouth to Lestat’s.

“ _My_ _Louis_.” Lestat purred wickedly, even as he lapped hungrily at his lover’s bleeding lip, even _biting it further_ to open the wound and take his gulping, gasping mouthfuls between wet, sloppy kisses. 

The way Lestat was saying his name, saying it as he had told him to, sent Louis into swells of arousal threateningly close to the point of no return. The blood that emptied from Louis' body left ecstasy in its wake. It was hopeless to try and prolong the inevitable. There was nothing he could do; everything that would slow him down would slow down Lestat, and everything that quickened him would quicken Lestat. It both frustrated and delighted him. Louis marveled at just how very in-sync they were.

Meanwhile, the ever constricting cords of white-hot agony wound ever tighter in Lestat’s belly. He felt his breath catch, his blood thudding in his ears. His face was flushed and hot with all the blood he had taken from Louis that night. “Louis, Louis, I’m—God—I’m fucking— _please—”_

He looked at him desperately, almost in worship. “ _L-Let me… Vous devez-vous devez me dire quand. Dis le mot et je viendrai pour toi.”_ Every breath he took was accompanied by a whorish, gasping high-pitched whine. 

“Oh, _mon garçon chéri, mon ciel étoilé!_ ” Louis moaned into Lestat’s ear. “Please do, please do! I want to hear you, I want to feel you tighten around me.” Louis added, after a moment, “ _Bientôt… bientôt tu m'auras aussi._ ” His hand abandoned its job and instead held Lestat closer.

“Come for me, Lestat… Lestat—come for me, _come for me!_ ”

Lestat had seemed for a moment to almost unnaturally relax. For a split second, he was infinitely still. Awaiting Louis’ seal of approval as though his orgasm was already reached, but lay in wait, like a bullet in the chamber.

But no sooner had it come;

After a week of cutthroat tension and unfulfilling days alone,

After hours of persuasion, seduction, coercion, cheating, lying, teasing, crying, and abandoning all previously held sense of pride or decency,

After being scolded, insulted, bitten, edged, berated, praised, worshipped, and roundly screwed into the mattress so hard the bed creaked and shook,

Lestat did not need telling twice to come for his beloved—

“LOUIS—”

A shout that rang out like cannon-fire. Louis clutched Lestat tighter than he ever had.

Lestat whipped his head back at first, eyes tightly shut, his fingernails carving into Louis’ back as he wept his lover’s name as fierce and impassioned as a battle cry.

His hands balled into fists, then flexed and splayed out. His toes curled then spread, his back arched drastically then contorted, and he buried his face in Louis’ chest, pressing his forehead to his collarbone, as he fiercely rode out his aftershocks, his teeth clenched, fang bared as his climax rampaged through him like a ransacking army, thundering through his body and torching everything in its path. 

He lost himself to the unmistakable sensation—falling, flying, all at once. 

His legs locked behind Louis, pulling him as close as possible. His arms wrapped over Louis’ shoulders like a koala, holding on as if for dear life, clinging to him as though he were his only grounding tie to reality, as though the world would fall away.

Louis held Lestat firmly, dependably, as Lestat crashed like a great wave over desert sands. He wished he could slow his own speed, dull his intensity, but his body was losing more and more control of itself. The feeling that rippled out from his groin was moving into every part of himself, tensing every muscle it engulfed. His toes were curling. His hips moved more jaggedly, all on their own.

Some may marvel at the idea of someone reaching fulfillment at the same time as one’s lover. Many call the notion unrealistic, others, impossible. They say there is no way to perfectly predict such an event, much less manipulate its occurrence. Even if one had been happily married for years, it could not be done.

These people had never met Louis de Pointe du Lac.

Lestat was a wreck. After all the lead up, the overstimulation was nearly overwhelming to him, and muffled against Louis’ flesh he stifled something akin to a sob. In an instant it was all too much to bear, too much heat, too much pressure, too much pleasure, he felt raw and dizzy, so shaken from the magnitude of his expense. 

He moaned and whined and fidgeted. 

Louis had gotten it closer than he ever had before. He hid a triumphant smile as he buried his face into Lestat’s neck. The joyful little sounds Lestat made during orgasm drove Louis wild. He let them melt his heart, his soul, his mind, his strength—

“LESTAT—!!”

A cry that broke through the air just as Lestat’s own were starting to lull. Louis pushed against him _hard._ He stayed there for a while as he died a million tiny deaths, riding the back of Lestat’s own waves with the same desperate passion that had been bottled up for days. “Oh, God… oh, God,” Louis choked, his head pressed to Lestat’s.

Putting his mouth to Louis’ sturdy arm, Lestat sunk his teeth into the meat of his shoulder to stem his own cries. Hot tears of relief wetting his flushed cheek.

At the same time, Louis found himself biting Lestat on the muscle at the base of his neck, just as Lestat was biting him. In that moment, they were nearly physically inseparable, becoming one body, one spirit. The Lord and His Church; the jewel in the lotus; peace and violence; life and death. His heart beat loudly, frantically. 

Together, they clung to each other desperately. It took a good deal of time before their breaths would slow, ever as their hearts ticked in overdrive. Louis’ thrusts tempered gradually.

Now more in his wits, Lestat sucked a large, blotchy purple bruise on Louis’ shoulder where he had bitten, nuzzling it and kissing it many times, licking the beads of blood away with the pad of his tongue like a cat in a form of silent apology. 

Similarly, Louis removed his teeth from Lestat, kissing the broken skin. He found Lestat’s mouth and kissed him deeply, taking his hand in his and holding it to his chest. As he pulled away he slid out of Lestat, then dropped to his stomach, half-on top of Lestat. A deep breath that Louis wondered if he had been keeping since they started sighed out of him, taking with it all tension, all pressure. His eyes fluttered closed when the side of his head fell to the sheets, his face to Lestat.

A moment lingered, maker and fledgling shared a moment together, peaceful and sated and wonderfully exhausted, their bodies tangled in a glorious heap. 

Lestat looked down to see that their fingers were still entwined, but did not seek to separate them. Instead he simply stretched, catlike, finally unlocking and straightening his aching legs, then flopped down and lay still on his back, eyes on the ceiling of the four-poster, his bare chest rising and falling steady and slow. Still flushed and heated, he struggled to still his agitated heart.

The hint of a clever smile spread across his lips. “ _Celui qui vit dans l'amour, il vit en dieu_.”

“ _Par conséquent, ce que Dieu a uni, que personne ne se sépare,_ ” Louis chuckled lazily. “I can memorize a passage too, if I put my mind to it. How about saying a simple—”

“—I love you.” Lestat supplied, instantly, without a trace of selfishness.

Louis’ eyes widened momentarily, Lestat’s three words piercing his heart like swords. But the ache could not have been more welcome. “I love _you,_ ” he cooed, poking Lestat’s chest teasingly, before pulling him closer and letting his eyes flutter closed.

They held each other. 

Blood was stained on every inch of their bodies that they had caressed. It covered Louis’ mouth, fingers, chest, neck. When Louis lifted the lids of his eyes, he saw the blood tears on Lestat’s cheeks. “Oh, darling,” Louis gasped, touching Lestat’s face, “why are you crying? Oh, _mon amour_ —Was I that rough?”

Lestat swatted him away, turning hastily around. “ _No! No, no,_ it was _perfect!_ I’m _fine._ I’m not upset!” He tried to say, but his words were so tightened and thickened with emotion, so very _obviously_ , _melodramatically_ upset, that it actually made him bubble into laughter. He giggled uncontrollably, hid his eyes in his hands, pushing Louis’ face away. 

“I’m NOT! Stop looking at me! I don’t know why I’m crying! Tch, _allez_ , _c’est tellement stupide_.” He chided himself with a sniffle, wiping hurriedly at his eyes with the base of his palm. 

“Alright, alright, my dear,” Louis consoled, “I believe you. It isn’t stupid at all!” Louis’ heart hurt a little to see Lestat so self-conscious, but he still found himself giggling. “Will you not let me hold you, at least?”

Louis bundled him into his arms and rolled onto his back, reversing their positions. Lestat curled himself up cozy and safe in Louis’ gentle embrace, laying his head on his broad chest, along with one hand.

“It’s just—I—it had just been too long, that’s all.”

Louis hummed in agreement. It _had_ been a long time. Louis had broken a personal record for this dry spell. And he hardly regretted it. Sure, it had been considerably more lonely, but to see the tables turned entirely on who had the power in their relationship was _delicious_. Another pause was spent in blissful silence.

Lestat snorted to himself.

“Oh no, what is it?” Louis asked.

“Wha—no, I was only thinking… if I had not found you, you could have been disappointing some poor wife just now.”

Louis’ arms squeezed a little tighter. “ _Oh, c'est affreux!_ ” Louis scoffed. “Well, fortunately, by now, I would most likely be dead. All opportunities closed.” He winked.

“Mmm.” 

They lay in silence for a further minute or two. Louis curled a lock of Lestat’s hair lazily on his fingers. Occasionally his hand would rub Lestat’s back. His nose was buried in that spill of yellow curls, drinking in the smell.

They would need to get up soon. They would have to put their shirts back on and button up their waistcoats. They would tie each other’s cravats and wipe away the blood. Where had Claudia gone to? He knew how she would often remove herself from the premises when he and Lestat became too loud to ignore. The house was still a mess, but Louis dreaded moving, fearing that Lestat would leave him again, close himself off and veil his fear with possessiveness.

_Then I will not move_ , thought Louis. They still had a couple hours of darkness yet.

“I will say, Lestat,” Louis murmured, “I think this is the most fun I have ever had with you. I am so delighted to hear how perfect it was.” Louis planted a kiss to Lestat’s head. “I will be sure to satisfy you in this way more often.”

He gazed into Lestat’s eyes and solidified his statement with another loving wink. “Not all the time, mind you. I’m not _completely_ heartless.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! You made it! Get yourself a glass of water and take a walk if you made it this far. Look out for a bonus epilogue later!
> 
> "Vite. Plus rapide." - Quick. Faster.  
> "s'il vous plaît" - please  
> "Je t’aime" - I love you  
> "Homme sans cœur! Taquiner. Vous coureur de jupons!" - Heartless man! You tease. You womanizer!  
> "Mon amoureux. Mon sale chien. Baise-moi comme une pute commune! Je suis ta pute. Mettez-le en moi, vous stupide bel homme.” - My lover. My dirty dog. Fuck me like a common whore! Put it in me, you stupid handsome man.  
> "merde" - shit/fuck/dammit  
> "ma bite" - my dick  
> “C'est toi qui est irrésistible, mon trésor.” - It is you who is irresistible, my treasure.  
> "Vous salope impitoyable." - You ruthless bitch.  
> "chatte" - incredibly low-class slang for 'cunt' or 'pussy'  
> "Enculer mon cul serré!" - Fuck my tight ass! ('enculer' is specifically anal sex; "cul serre" is also slang for 'gay ass')  
> “Plus, plus vite, plus vite! Qu'est-ce que tu es un idiot? Essayez-vous de me tuer? Branle-moi! Je le veux maintenant, j'en ai besoin! Sale salope!” - More, faster, faster! What are you an idiot? Are you trying to kill me? Jerk me off! I want it now, I need it! Dirty bitch!  
> "Nique moi! Nique moi, ma beau homme! Je ne peux plus le supporter! Je vais éclater. Je vais mourir! C'est trop. Dieu au paradis. Plus! Plus! Plus! Allez! Aies pitié--" - Fuck me! Fuck me, my handsome man! I can not stand it anymore! I'm going to come. I will die! It's too much. God in paradise. More! More! More! Come on! Have mercy--  
> “Merci pour votre patience." - Thank you for your patience.  
> “Tu le sais?” - You know?  
> "Oui oui, je suis! Votre propre petit prince gâté. Vous petit homme dépravé et tordu! Cela vous excite, non?" - Yes yes, I am! Your own spoiled little prince. You depraved and crooked little man! That turns you on, doesn't it?  
> "Je le jure—" - I swear to--  
> "Ne t'inquiète pas" - Do not worry  
> "Je ne peux pas le prendre!" - I cannot take it!  
> "J'en ai vraiment besoin. Mettez votre putain de cock en moi jusqu'à ce que vous soyez à vos couilles." - I really need it. Put your fucking cock in me until you're balls-deep.  
> "dîtes-moi quand…" - tell me when...  
> "Baise-moi jusqu'à ce que tu jouisses." - Fuck me until you come.  
> "Je suis un parfait petit ange. Comment osez-vous." - I am a perfect little angel. How dare you.  
> "Mon chéri, innocent garçon." - My darling, innocent boy.  
> "Je te donnerai tout ce que ton cœur désire!" - I will give you everything your heart desires!  
> "Donnez-moi vos souhaits et je les exaucerai, mon chérie! Je t’adore, je t’adore!" - Give me your wishes and I will grant them, my darling! I adore you, I adore you!  
> "Ta bite se sent tellement bien en moi." - Your dick feels so good in me.  
> "mon précieux" - my precious  
> "Mon cœur! Mon Lestat, je t’aime si follement!" - My heart! My Lestat, I love you so madly!  
> "Mon bel homme grand, fort et travailleur. Roi de mon coeur. Tu ne sais pas que mon amour ne brûle que pour toi? Je veux seulement ton contact, tes gémissements, tes baisers. Votre plaisir est mon plaisir." - My handsome tall, strong and hard-working man. King of my heart. Don't you know that my love only burns for you? I only want your touch, your moans, your kisses. Your pleasure is my pleasure.  
> "Vous vous êtes branlé et avez pensé à moi? Pécheur, avez-vous des rêves dégoûtants?" - Did you jerk off and think of me? Sinner, do you have disgusting dreams?  
> "Chaque jour tu étais absent je me touchais, et viens avec ton nom sur mes lèvres." - Every day you were away I touched myself, and came with your name on my lips.  
> "vilain garçon" - naughty boy  
> "Vous devez me dire quand. Dis le mot et je viendrai pour toi." - You must tell me when. Say the word and I'll come for you.  
> "mon ciel étoilé" - my starry sky  
> "Bientôt tu m'auras aussi." - Soon you will have me too.  
> "Celui qui vit dans l'amour, il vit en Dieu." - He who lives in love, lives in God. (1 John 4:16)  
> "Par conséquent, ce que Dieu a uni, que personne ne se sépare." - Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. (Mark 10:9)  
> "Allez, C’est tellement stupide." - Come on, it's so stupid.  
> "c'est affreux" - it's horrible


	4. Epilogue

Lestat was in heaven. Figuratively. To end up there in a literal sense would no doubt, all things considered, be highly unexpected.   
  
But perhaps, he had indeed experienced a glimpse of paradise, he found himself musing, as every thrust and plunge sent him into convulsions.   
  
How lucky he had been. What a blessed life, what utter privilege; to unabashedly succumb to his three favorite addictions: blood, praise, and Louis du Pointe Du Lac. 

Who else in the world could claim to know his joy?

He had a family, who cared for him, and were his own, to love, and who time could not touch or wither in their infinite loyalty. 

A beautiful child, so wise and precocious and innocent—her face like porcelain, golden curls like an angel, with blue eyes that glimmered as though some divine hand had painted in their lacquer. The kind of child that the renaissance painters immortalized in the heavens, so had HE immortalized her, to walk the earth, a cherub in the flesh to bless mankind. 

A child who had never been their squawling infant, who never craved a mother’s milk or disturbed their daily rest. All the blessings of a darling little pupil, to hold and cherish and teach the wonders of the world. Who took after him so succinctly as to have memorized his passions and his sorrows. Who could read Diogenes and Proust, yet was not too grown to be cradled in his arms. Truly, a perfect little girl. 

No man living on this earth could claim their filthy, mortal brood so fair. 

He most lavish and gaudiest house money could acquire, in which no expense had been spared. He wandered the expansive set of rooms clothed only in silk Japanese robes, and bathed in imported oils. He treads on finely woven Turkish carpets, wore crushed velvet and Parisian lace. He drank the blue blood of the landed gentry from priceless crystal goblets, tickled the ivories on an exquisite baby grand, made love swaddled in clouds of feather down, then laid to rest on satin so plush he could swear not even Lincoln in his grave could claim a burial so fair. 

Their house was stationed on the most charming of streets, bedecked in shadowy alleyways and ivy-covered brick, smoky french cafes, and jazz saloons wafting their siren blues. New Orleans was truly the most magical and effervescent paradise one could ever hope to tread. Each night, a fantasy of honeysuckle and warm bayou breeze. 

No man on earth could claim a home so wonderous. 

And finally. Chief in his treasures. 

He had taken for himself a lover. So well mannered and kind, soft-spoken and gentle, yet shrouded in keen intellect and mystery. A man so pure of heart, he could love a demon far beneath the redemption of His holy gaze. 

A man whose beauty would never fade, whose blossom in his prime of youth, like a sculpted idol, would never lose his luster. 

So naive, yet learned. So sheltered, yet daring. So innocent, yet yearning somewhere twisted in his soul to know the untold joys of blood and flesh. 

He remembered the first time they had kissed. How tentative Louis had been—scared and flighty, like the winsome moth that is drawn to light then flutters hurridly away when it is burned. 

Lestat had always held a secret hopeful joy that _he_ had been the first man to _take_ Louis. It played a drumroll on his very heart to imagine that in Louis first, blinking gaze into the wonders of his sex, it had been _he_ , Lestat, who had opened his slumberous eyes. 

He could not imagine Louis with a woman, though it gave him much humor to do so. But regardless of his past, he belonged to Lestat now. His very life was Lestat’s making, and as far as the maker was concerned, he still held it in the balance of his whim. 

And sure. They fought. They butted heads. They were each other's drug, with highs and lows. 

But Louis was the only one who would always be in his bed to come home to. 

Louis was the one who raised his child, who knew Lestat’s favorite opera and his favorite flower and could recite his favorite poetry by rote. 

Who else could claim the love of such an exquisite man? 

Who else could know the depth of his devotion? 

Who else had ever been speared on his cock, tasted his nipples, had the euphoric honor of squeezing his taut backside. 

_Nobody_. 

_Lestat_ , that’s who. 

And he’d unleash the wrath of hell the likes of which were yet unseen, should it ever be anyone else. 

But no. He really was a lucky man. 

“I am a lucky man!” 

He declared happily.

“God, strike me damned, Je suis un homme chanceux!”

“Shut up.” Said Louis, groggily. “Stop hogging the covers.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for your love, your support, and most importantly your PATIENCE. I know we have taken a long time updating the final chapter, so if you're still here, thanks for sticking around!  
> We hope you have enjoyed Their Eyes Were Watching God. Our love, our romance, our story is this fanfiction. I am so proud to call it ours. From the bottom of our hearts, I love all who have read this, and all who have commented. Your feedback is what keeps us motivated to share our work with the world. 
> 
> If you’re interested in more content from us, you can find Cheryl’s Vampire Chronicles tiktok and discord link at @seige-ayy, and you can find Liv on Twitter and Instagram at @itslivyouguys.  
> Sincerely, Cheryl (xx) and Liv (oo)


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